Small Businesses Brace for Tax Battle - washingtonpost.com »
Posted By stephen-johnson 8 months ago in Business & FinanceBut, like most small-business owners, Johnson reports her profit on her personal tax return. In a typical year, she and her husband make more than $500,000, according to her accountant, a figure that throws them squarely into the ranks of the richest Americans -- and makes them a prime target for the Obama administration's tax policy.
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stephen-johnson8 months ago
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FTA:
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"Johnson, with her company, falls into both categories. If Obama's tax plans are enacted, her accountant estimates that her federal tax bill -- typically, around $120,000 a year -- would rise by at least $23,000, a 19 percent increase.
"You hear 'tax the rich,' and you think, 'I don't make that much money,' " said Johnson, whose Rainbow Station programs are headquartered near Richmond. "But then you realize: 'Oh, if I put my business income with my wages, then, suddenly, I'm there.' ""
Most of the top 1% of tax returns filed are from unincorporated businesses, not individuals. Small business is the engine that drives the economy, but Obama's tax policies are unaware of this.
Really surprising that the Washington Post ran this story. Kudos to them for being honest for a change with regard to Obama's policies. -
libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned
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nostalgia8 months ago
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There is no way the Obama promise of "only raising taxes on the wealthy" can survive and the administration knows this
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Small businesses will be the first to get hammered and it will move to lower income groups after that
Meanwhile the government gets deeper and deeper into debt
Treasury needs record $361B April-June borrowing
he Treasury Department said Monday it will need to borrow $361 billion in the current April-June quarter, a record amount for that period.
It's the third straight quarter the government's borrowing needs have set records for those periods.
Treasury also estimated it will need to borrow $515 billion in the July-September quarter, down slightly from the $530 billion borrowed during the year-ago period. The all-time high of $569 billion was set in the October-December period.
The huge borrowing needs reflect the soaring costs of the $700 billion financial rescue program and the recession, which is nearing a record as the longest in the post World War II period.
The slump has cut sharply into tax revenue and boosted government spending for benefit programs such as unemployment insurance and food stamps.
The administration is projecting the federal deficit for the entire budget year ending Sept. 30, will total a record $1.75 trillion. A deficit at that level would nearly quadruple the previous record of $454.8 billion set last year.
To cover the government's heavy borrowing needs, Congress in February boosted the limit for the national debt to $12.1 trillion as part of the legislation that enacted President Barack Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus program. The national debt now stands at $11.1 trillion.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090427/ap_on_bi_go_ec...-
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Wolfie20078 months ago
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nostalgia
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"There is no way the Obama promise of "only raising taxes on the wealthy" can survive and the administration knows this.'
But, of course, as long as the useful idiots don't figure it out Obama is in tall cotton. What makes useful idiots so useful is they are really, really stupid. -
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wtagg8 months ago
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We may agree on the taxing of the wealthy bit (for possible different reasons), but to suggest that small business will get hammered is unfounded. To do so you would need to demonstrate that a large number percentage-wise of small businesses net more than $250,000 for their owners.
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Ms. Johnson is at risk because a large part of her income appears to come from franchising, which offers little to no deductions. To suggest that she will go out of business because of $23,000, which is at most (because her family income is described as more than $500,000) 4.5% of the family income. Irony alert, that is about 60% of the tax break provided in the stimulus package that seemed to be downplayed greatly by many. If it is incidental in one direction, it is incidental in the other.
What Ms. Johnson should be doing is campaigning for a flat tax. That would most likely benefit her the most. More irony, it would probably benefit most of the citizenry the most and provide equality in taxation representation.
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willottica8 months ago
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Yeah, with family income over $500,000 per year, I find it difficult to sympathize. If this is the result of including profits that are redirected into business capital as "personal income", then the solution is simple. File your taxes properly. Instead of a 20,000 tax increase, her accountant will have to work a little harder (or maybe she'll have to pay a competent one instead).
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The argument that by raising the rates on personal returns will hurt small businesses is spurious. If your small business makes enough money that this tax will hurt it, then your small business is large enough that you should be filing your taxes as though it were a business. If this means that your taxes go up, because you were filing as an individual because you had to pay less taxes than actually declaring your business, then what you were doing before was TAX EVASION (though a legal form of it). -
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