Millionaires, Taxes And Jobs
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-12-12/millionaires-taxes-and-jobs
In an interview on cbs sixty minutes last night, president Obama said the very rich can afford to pay a little more in taxes. In a major speech last week, he argued that even before the recent recession, Americans at the top of the income scale managed to keep their effective tax rates low and grow wealthier than those in lower brackets. Republicans accuse the president of engaging in class warfare. They say tax hikes on the wealthy would be a strike against those in a position to create new jobs. In this hour, a panel joins Diane to discuss taxing millionaires and the effect on creating new jobs.
Guests
Tamara Keith
NPR congressional reporter
Eric Toder
fellow, Urban Institute, and co-director, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.
David Kocieniewski
New York Times reporter, author of the series "... But Nobody Pays That"
Comments
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The commentator's characterization of Rabbi trusts was incomplete. He is correct that the employee beneficiaries are not taxed until the income is paid out to them from the trust. He did not mention, however, that the employer is not permitted to take a tax decudtion for funds held in the trust until the payments are actually made to the employee. Taxes are therefore paid on funds held in Rabbi trusts.
It seems that the tax code favors people who create money, but not who work, serve or create things for the society.
What if we were to go to taxing wealth, net worth rather than income. The rate might be 5% of all wealth, i.e., net worth. We could eliminate corporate taxes to incentivize [? sp.] job creation since someone owns the corporations, i.e., has the wealth and would be paying annual taxes on the wealth.
Charity deductions would lower your wealth but other wise have no impact on your taxes.
Until it was finally sold, your personal residence [just one] would be exempted from your net worth up to some limit.
Normster in Louisville, KY
It seems that the tax code favors people who create money, but not who work, serve or create things for the society.
Diane, were you able to find anyone from the Republican party or think tank organizations who would come on your show to assist our understanding of their position on taxing job creaters?
thanks,
john
It would be helpful to your listeners to list taxable income tables and the tax rate in each category. At $250,000 what would be the income tax, payroll tax, state tax? The top one half of one percent receive the biggest tax breaks under the 'Bush tax cut' bill. More than 85% of tax payers pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes.
FDR ran on a class-warfare platform and did quite well in getting elected several times. What is not said in that discussion is the fact that there was a double dip recession that occurred around 1937 caused by his stance. I personally have been working for the past 8 years, taking no (0) income from my efforts to build a business. I am now on the cusp of having an income that could reach a nice high level. Should I be penalized for this effort or should I do everything my attorneys and accountants advise to avoid entering this category. Your guests are talking that this is just a term and not really class warfare. My income will be based on the rules as set up by the attorneys and political science grads that are in office and being courted by the lobbyists to favor their side of this equation. Does this make me a bad person because I am trying to rise above the poverty level?
Given the conclusions your guests are asserting, how can the greater public be properly informed of these facts? It seems that the voting public continues to be fooled and persuaded by nonsensical arguments from the right, and outdated slogans like "tax and spend liberals," when it's clear that Democrats have been MORE fiscally responsible than Republicans over the last several decades.
Congress has failed to extend sales tax collection to online retailers. This gives a tax advantage to those with internet access and a credit card.....and a disadvantage to those without.
How many jobs did Steve Jobs create in China and overseas? The millioniare, billionaire job creators over seas have and continue to be traitors to the American workers. They go over seas for cheaper wages, less restrictive enviromental standards etc. They go to make more profits for the 1%. I don't believe for one second that Steve Jobs could not find 30,ooo engineers in the US. That claim is a bunch of hooey.
Jobs was as greedy as the next billionaire creating jobs overseas
Please comment on Kenysian economics and the reality that Congress no longer has to ensure that there is revenue for ANYthing they pass anymore. Once Congress could not pass into law anything that required revenue without also indicating HOW that law would be paid for. Kenysian economics seems to do away with that check on Congress' spending. Isn't it time to go back to Congress making some changes on their own actions, TOO?
unions unions unions...no other way to provide and change lower paid wages. No other way.
They should pay a third of the income tax when they often make their profits off the backs of workers making pathetic wages often with no health insurance
Why do Republicans claim that taxes on the top 1% will hurt job creation? Perhaps it's the obvious answer -- they lie.
I do know lower to middle income folks who do everything they can to Not pay taxes. I know a woman who hid her millions in her millionaire sisters name, claimed that the three in her family were living on her partners income of 15,ooo a year, received medicaid insurance coverage, voted Republican and completely avoided paying taxes on her real value.
I know folks who work under the table do not claim what they really make.
What is it with the rich, some middle class and some lower incomes not wanting to pay anything for our roads, schools, those less fortunate. Seems like many are avoiding taking any responsibility
FICA contributions are in fact contributions to employee benefit programs sponsored by the government.
Calling FICA contributions TAXES is worse than misdirection, it is a deceptive lie.
Terrible lopsided panel, nothing was learned here today.
Diane, this comment is in regard to the recent caller citing IRS stats about percentage of taxes. Your guest's reactions were simply too complicated. Yes the top earners pay a higher percentage of taxes. THEY EARN MORE. When the top 5% controls more than 50% of capital, they should may more tax. It's that simple.
Thanks for a great show.
Andrew Smith
Hickory, NC
jtindr- You argue from a selfish particular and expect millions of unemployed and under-employed persons to sacrifice so an exception like you can get more. Such myopic selfishness would be irrational under economic democracy, and unusual manipulators would not have to build tricky Rube Goldberg semi-legalities just to get a little money. Why keep working at nothing for nothing jtindr, get out there and demand the "Jab craters" give you a real job.
I welcome irrational attacks and insults because they can only elevate the truths of what I present here. It is true that Obama-hatred and P-tardyism have an underlying racist theme for appeal to the Identity Religions, the fearful and ignorant. Everyone knows this and it is useless to deny. Several "conservatives" here have boasted their racial prejudices, and then denying allies have high-fived them for their cruel audacities. What's up with that? I have my African genes to celebrate, and so do we all.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics used to justify regressive tax regimes (with apologies to Mark Twain). Listen to Guy Raz's interview of billionaire investor Nick Hanauer, who refutes of the 1% as "job creators" from 12/10 on www.npr.org.
I pay for Social Security and Medicare, so they are not entitlements, any more than the disability and catestrophic insurance I pay to AFLAC or the health insurance premium that come out of my paycheck every week are entitlements.
If I'm not paying enough for Soc Security and Medicare, they say so, but don't tell me that I'm not entitled to them.
Next: there is no better time to phase out the mortgage interest deduction than now (or better yet to have started in 2008). There are millions less mortgage-holders now, and millions more renters. We should not be giving incentives to borrow money.
Let us pretend that we live in a world where our successes are due (at least in the sense that they bought our products) in part to our society. Why, then, is it unfair to think that those who have succeeded in this society should contribute more to the growth and development of the society that made them wealthy?
This country could fail. Our society is our team. If this was baseball you surely wouldn't be expected to play for your buddies, but if you have skills and opportunities that they don't have, it is in the best interest of the team for you to work with those weaker players (even at the expense of your practice time) to make a stronger, more well rounded team.
Selfishness begets contempt, but don't take my word for it, go to any other post-industrial country and see how much we "yanks" and our extreme sense of individualism are appreciated.
This is not a dollars and sense or a "fairness" argument. It is a MORAL argument.
The estate tax is the worst evidence of the moral bankruptcy of our country's government I can think of. I hear people say of weathy heirs, "Why should they get their daddy's money? They didn't work for it". Well, neither did the government. Confiscating someone's wealth just because they have died is as immoral as it gets. When someone dies, what gives a government the MORAL RIGHT to confiscate their wealth?
Thank you! I shout that at the radio all the time. How is my retirement contribution result in an "Entitlement" but someone's 401K isn't?
mrsgreelish wrote:"If I'm not paying enough for Soc Security and Medicare, they say so, but don't tell me that I'm not entitled to them"
You are paying about one third on average of what the actual cost of medicare is.
I seem to remember from basic economics class that jobs are created by the need for supply...and that supply is created by demand. As the middle class demands things, business owners hire people to supply those things. Taxes on the business was not part of the equation. Taxes on the middle class may influence the equation since their disposable income finances a lot of demand.
So, whose tax cut will do the most for the economy?
Consider an average-wage two-earner couple together earning $89,000 a year. Upon retiring in 2011, they would have paid $114,000 in Medicare payroll taxes during their careers. But they can expect to receive medical services – including prescriptions and hospital care – worth $355,000, or about three times what they put in.
http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/funding-medicare/
johnandere: I doubt you possess the kind of fortune subject to inheritance taxes. Why do you care then? Are you trying to snuggle up to your masters? Why is the abstraction of wealth so laudable for you?
People don't accumulate large sums of money in a vacuum. Many who do benefit from infrastructure taxpayers provide, government funding and contracts, and immoral laws. A good percentage break laws to get their big money. All value comes from workers' labor and if they are exploited a readjustment is in order. It is pin-holed visioned persons such as yourself who stand in the way of economic justice. You can't take it with you at death so why not share? Maybe just before Christmas is the time for irrational bugs to crawl out of the woodwork, but remember how parading roaches beg for boric acid.
Slow down on the white powder and try not to explode by New Years.
Inheritance is taxed like income: Suppose the employer decides to give all his employees $40,000; it will be income-taxed. They all take their after-tax income to a car dealer and buy 50 cars, and that car dealer gives his employees a big bonus for the great sales month. Your wealth has passed to them, and been taxed again. If that car dealer left the profit from the 50 cars to his heirs it isn't taxed, but if he gives it to his employees it is?
Mitch McConnell, a constant lier, like a broken record - don't tax the rich because they are job creators" , even after it has, been proven not so. Isn't he getting too old to be the senate minority leader? He has no new or good ideas , and he is stuck in that one position - his extreme hatred of Obama from the second he won the presidency. What is wrong with this man? Why does Kentucky keep voting him back in?