Really.
I must be hallucinating.
Or am I the only person in the whole country who understands how income taxes are assessed?
I can't be the only person. I know all of you at Open Salon are smarter than the average right wing media nut. And you're lots smarter than Christine O'Donnell.
I wanted to scream at the TV and at Chris Coons, when in their nationally televised debate on October 13th O'Donnell said "What you fail to realize is the so-called rich are the small business owner, the dry-cleaner down the street, the pizza shop owner who makes $300,000 before they pay their four employees..."
Wrong! In fact a flat-out lie! She does not understand how taxes are assessed. And Coons did not correct her.
What O'Donnell and others like her fail to realize is that taxes are assessed on net income, after all deductions are taken. If a dry-cleaner made $300,00 in sales, they would deduct operating expenses like payroll, rent, utilities, insurance, and supplies to arrive at a taxable income. They're called deductions, Ms O'Donnell, Mr Limbaugh, Mr Beck, Ms Palin and the rest of you!
I was equally frustrated during the last presidential campaign when no one corrected those who jumped on Joe the Plumber's bandwagon. He thought if he bought a plumbing business worth $250,000, he would be assessed income taxes on $250,000 before his deductions. And he thought he'd be taxed at one rate for the entire $250,000.
Also wrong.
You see, we have a progressive tax in the United States. We are taxed at different rates for different dollars earned. If an individual earned $300,000 in taxable income in 2009, he would be taxed at 10% for the first $8350 earned, then 15% for $8351 - $33,950, 25% for $33, 951 - $82,250, 28% for $82,251 - $171,550, and 33% for $171,551 - $300,00.
Because the media (and Democrats) allow this mis-information to be repeated over and over again, many Americans think that Obama wants to raise taxes on the average Joe. If the Bush tax cuts are not extended for those making over $250,000, only that portion over $250,000 would be taxed at the higher rate. That's after deductions are taken, like mortgage interest, property tax and charitable contributions.
How come nobody seems to correct politicians and the media talking heads when they incorrectly talk about how taxes are assessed. How come they allow people like O'Donnell to scare Americans into thinking that those of us on the left want to raise taxes on small businesses and the the little guy?
Ms O'Donnell, I am a small business owner and I have never come close to earning $300,000 in taxable income. If I ever do, I would think I was one of the so-called rich!
Or maybe I'm just hallucinating.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Jaime Franchi
Lunchlady 2
white and black
Kent Pitman
Jimmy Zuma
Steven Housman
Salon.com
Comments
Sorry.
Nobody ever said politicians were smart. Rated!
Seriously folks.....this tax misconception that the GOP keeps repeating is something that really bothers me.
"Death taxes" and "small businessmen." Obscene lie.
BTW, what 's with all this spam?
We need to insist that the media AND our politicians gets the facts right - and call them on it when they don't. People will vote against their own best interests if they believe what they are being told.
It's interesting to me that the Tea Party is so much about cutting taxes, and they do not understand how they are assessed.
Butt, butt, butt, can you use it as a deduction?
BTW-You didn't get it all deleted.
I'm also a small business owner and know all these things the idiots either don't know or lie about or both.
Maybe they ought to go back home and ride their dinosaurs.
The tax code is overly complicated, and no doubt it leaves many of us bewildered from time to time, but I think most voters, and even many right-wing pundits, know that only take-home pay/profit is taxed. Additionally, those with a little more direct knowledge, e.g., small-business owners, know that small-business income can vary wildly from year to year, and that one year over 250k may have come after a string of bad years; making that extra x% on the over a little more painful than it's sometimes made out to be.
Both sides of debates like this one oversimplify and get things flat-out wrong. Alas, this is what happens when playing politics trumps all.
However, O'Donnell is (or was at least) so far behind in the polls that we shouldn't have to worry much, and Coons (although he didn't snatch that golden opportunity) seems like a ferly smart guy... who is however a politician, and can't be trusted further than the distance he can thrown by a brace of aging midgets.
Trig...it's not just about O'Donnell and Coons. I have talked to people who have said that Obama wants to raise taxes on small businesses because they hear people like O'Donnell say that and never get corrected or challenged.
Note the "used to." The idiotic right-wingness of the owners got to me.
The shocking thing is that so few politicians know the issues. They just think poor, struggling overtaxed small business because small business is virtuous and everyone should have sympathy for it.
Why inheriting a small business worth a few million should be fundamentally different from inheriting stock worth a few million is a mystery to me.
However, I think O'Donnell and the like are going to be calling the world's richest CEO's "small business owners" for the next infinity of years.
Common sense especially on financial matters is so out of vogue with GOP hopefuls (who also have math problems understanding why reducing overall revenues by reducing taxes to these "small business owners" won't "fix" massive budget deficits. If only vooodoo economics wasn't still so popular with so much of our electorate....)
*sigh*