Higher Tax Rates Would Barely Touch Small Businesses

[drakonyx]

Warren Buffett has acknowledged there's a class war going on. "Actually, there's been class warfare going on for the last 20 years and my class has won," he said in an interview recently. "We're the ones who have gotten our tax rates reduced dramatically."

Since 1992, Buffett said, income for the 400 wealthiest taxpayers has increased more than five-fold: from $40 million to $227 million. Yet during that same period, their tax rates have fallen from 29% to 21%.

Republicans have used the small-business bogeyman as a way to scare the public off from raising taxes on the wealthy for years. They know the public is fed up with CEO's making enormous salaries and millionaires stashing their cash in tax loopholes. So they've deflected attention off the fat cats by asserting that Obama's tax proposals would actually hurt small businesses more. That’s simply not true.

http://www.theprovocation.net/2011/10/higher-tax-rates-would-barely-touch.html

[PETRUS]

1. yup

Right-wingers will complain that the US already has higher corporate tax rates than other developed nations. Oddly enough, this is true. BUT, the effective tax rate - meaning what is actually collected - is much lower and in line with the countries used to make the original comparison. Why? Because the big corporations have lawyers and lobbyists that game the system. Right now small business creation in the US lags severely. Putting and end to the favorable treatment received by well-connected business interests would allow us to lower overall tax rate, and make it easier for "mom & pop" to get something off the ground and keep it going.