joecoolfreak
09-17-2008, 12:46 PM
I usually don't post about politics, but I am a diligent reader. As of late, I keep seeing things that people post that I seriously don't understand, so I am going to throw some things out and see what happens.
Lets start with all of the talk about taxes. This has been posted before, but I don't think many people are reading this one very clearly:
http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2008/06/12/GR2008061200193.gif
Now, what can we read out of this one. I am SO tired of reading that Obama is going to raise taxes on the small business owners and they are going to charge more etc...Very clearly, according to the chart, Obama's proposal is if you make between 225k and 603k per year gross income, you are going to pay 12 dollars less a year in taxes. I don't think any small business owners are going to go out of business making 12 MORE dollars than they did the previous year. According to Obama's plan, you have to make more than 600k annual salary before your taxes will increase over their current rate. Now, for all those that are confusing personal taxes with corporate taxes: THEY ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. They are different because you have to separate corporate income (profit) and your own personal income (salary) in order to be a corporation.
Now, how much do small business owners make on average you ask?
According to the survey, the national average salary for the CEO/Partner/Owner job function is $258,400; however, compensation varies widely across geographies. For example, small business CEOs/Partners/Owners in the District of Columbia earn $395,000 annually -- more than 2.5 times as much as their counterparts in Oklahoma.
source:Salary.com (http://www.salary.com/aboutus/layoutscripts/abtl_default.asp?tab=abt&cat=cat012&ser=ser041&part=Par545)
That means that small business owners will certainly not have to be paying any more personal taxes under Obama's plan, because most/if not almost all are making well less than 600k/year. Again, try not to confuse how much their businesses make with these numbers, because this is discussing the personal tax code. Now, if you are a one person business and your business NET's over 600k/year and you don't use that money to reinvest in your business and choose to take that profit as your salary, you deserve to get taxed at a higher rate because you suck at running a business from a financial standpoint.
So what is Obama's plan for the corporate side?
Provide Tax Relief for Small Businesses and Start Up Companies: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will eliminate all capital gains taxes on start-up and small businesses to encourage innovation and job creation. Obama and Biden will also support small business owners by providing a $500 “Making Work Pay” tax credit to almost every worker in America. Self-employed small business owners pay both the employee and the employer side of the payroll tax, and this measure will reduce the burdens of this double taxation.
source:Barackobama.com (http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/)
So, not only will small business owners be saving in personal taxes under the Obama plan, the will be saving significant amounts of corporate taxes because they are exempt from capital gains.
Now, let's take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Why does the economy look like it does at the moment? I hear lots of opinions about gas prices, the housing bust, outsourcing etc..., but if you ask me, it is really quite simple. Almost all of these (especially the cost of fuel) are drastically exacerbated by the falling value of the dollar. The source of that problem is very easy to identify. All of the foreign investors (who own all of our exponentially large debt) have lost confidence in our ability to pay it back. Wow, wonder where they got that idea.
Any year we spend more than we bring in, we are going to weaken the economy. It's that simple. There are two easy solutions to this, stop spending money and bring more in(taxes). Lets focus on taxes again. If you look at Mcain's plan, we are cutting taxes across the board. That simply means that we are making less money in tax revenue. Obama's does the same, it just doesn't cut everyone's taxes as much. He raises the taxes for some and lowers it for others to reduce the amount of revenue lost in the process. Both policies are flawed in my opinion, but one is much more flawed, because ultimately it is going to weaken the dollar more and therefore, continue the economic trend.
Now for spending. I don't doubt that the democrats are planning on spending more money on government programs, but let's be honest. The republicans aren't any better about choosing where that money goes. If I had to choose between spending 640 billion dollars, I think I might prefer government programs over imperialistic military action, but maybe that's just me.
I am sure some of you don't believe it is fair that we should tax the rich and provide for the poor and I do agree with you. That being said, we have to tax somebody, and let's face it, you can't get blood from a stone. You have to tax the people with the money, because you don't get anything from taxing people without money. That being the case, taxes don't just pay for "wealth distribution programs" as some conservatives would like you to believe. Taxes pay for infrastructure, government operations, military forces, etc. and are necessary. Not only that, they should be paying for all of the interest that we are accruing every moment. I don't want higher taxes personally, but I do recognize that they are necessary. Lowering taxes is just putting a band-aid on a broken leg. It simply prolongs the problem, yet does nothing to make it better. Politicians love to talk about a balanced budget, but that just isn't' good enough. We actually need to make a lot more than we spend every year just to cover the interest, and that doesn't even begin to address lowering the principal.
Either way, this has become long winded enough. I am trying to make this all an educational and civil thread by providing simple information with my own personal analysis. I very much look forward to seeing what the opposition's take on this is.
Lets start with all of the talk about taxes. This has been posted before, but I don't think many people are reading this one very clearly:
http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2008/06/12/GR2008061200193.gif
Now, what can we read out of this one. I am SO tired of reading that Obama is going to raise taxes on the small business owners and they are going to charge more etc...Very clearly, according to the chart, Obama's proposal is if you make between 225k and 603k per year gross income, you are going to pay 12 dollars less a year in taxes. I don't think any small business owners are going to go out of business making 12 MORE dollars than they did the previous year. According to Obama's plan, you have to make more than 600k annual salary before your taxes will increase over their current rate. Now, for all those that are confusing personal taxes with corporate taxes: THEY ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. They are different because you have to separate corporate income (profit) and your own personal income (salary) in order to be a corporation.
Now, how much do small business owners make on average you ask?
According to the survey, the national average salary for the CEO/Partner/Owner job function is $258,400; however, compensation varies widely across geographies. For example, small business CEOs/Partners/Owners in the District of Columbia earn $395,000 annually -- more than 2.5 times as much as their counterparts in Oklahoma.
source:Salary.com (http://www.salary.com/aboutus/layoutscripts/abtl_default.asp?tab=abt&cat=cat012&ser=ser041&part=Par545)
That means that small business owners will certainly not have to be paying any more personal taxes under Obama's plan, because most/if not almost all are making well less than 600k/year. Again, try not to confuse how much their businesses make with these numbers, because this is discussing the personal tax code. Now, if you are a one person business and your business NET's over 600k/year and you don't use that money to reinvest in your business and choose to take that profit as your salary, you deserve to get taxed at a higher rate because you suck at running a business from a financial standpoint.
So what is Obama's plan for the corporate side?
Provide Tax Relief for Small Businesses and Start Up Companies: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will eliminate all capital gains taxes on start-up and small businesses to encourage innovation and job creation. Obama and Biden will also support small business owners by providing a $500 “Making Work Pay” tax credit to almost every worker in America. Self-employed small business owners pay both the employee and the employer side of the payroll tax, and this measure will reduce the burdens of this double taxation.
source:Barackobama.com (http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/)
So, not only will small business owners be saving in personal taxes under the Obama plan, the will be saving significant amounts of corporate taxes because they are exempt from capital gains.
Now, let's take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Why does the economy look like it does at the moment? I hear lots of opinions about gas prices, the housing bust, outsourcing etc..., but if you ask me, it is really quite simple. Almost all of these (especially the cost of fuel) are drastically exacerbated by the falling value of the dollar. The source of that problem is very easy to identify. All of the foreign investors (who own all of our exponentially large debt) have lost confidence in our ability to pay it back. Wow, wonder where they got that idea.
Any year we spend more than we bring in, we are going to weaken the economy. It's that simple. There are two easy solutions to this, stop spending money and bring more in(taxes). Lets focus on taxes again. If you look at Mcain's plan, we are cutting taxes across the board. That simply means that we are making less money in tax revenue. Obama's does the same, it just doesn't cut everyone's taxes as much. He raises the taxes for some and lowers it for others to reduce the amount of revenue lost in the process. Both policies are flawed in my opinion, but one is much more flawed, because ultimately it is going to weaken the dollar more and therefore, continue the economic trend.
Now for spending. I don't doubt that the democrats are planning on spending more money on government programs, but let's be honest. The republicans aren't any better about choosing where that money goes. If I had to choose between spending 640 billion dollars, I think I might prefer government programs over imperialistic military action, but maybe that's just me.
I am sure some of you don't believe it is fair that we should tax the rich and provide for the poor and I do agree with you. That being said, we have to tax somebody, and let's face it, you can't get blood from a stone. You have to tax the people with the money, because you don't get anything from taxing people without money. That being the case, taxes don't just pay for "wealth distribution programs" as some conservatives would like you to believe. Taxes pay for infrastructure, government operations, military forces, etc. and are necessary. Not only that, they should be paying for all of the interest that we are accruing every moment. I don't want higher taxes personally, but I do recognize that they are necessary. Lowering taxes is just putting a band-aid on a broken leg. It simply prolongs the problem, yet does nothing to make it better. Politicians love to talk about a balanced budget, but that just isn't' good enough. We actually need to make a lot more than we spend every year just to cover the interest, and that doesn't even begin to address lowering the principal.
Either way, this has become long winded enough. I am trying to make this all an educational and civil thread by providing simple information with my own personal analysis. I very much look forward to seeing what the opposition's take on this is.