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'Bait and Switch' Taxes (Thomas Sowell)
Creators Syndicate ^ | September 4, 2012 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 09/04/2012 12:33:43 PM PDT by jazusamo

We have heard many times from President Barack Obama how he plans to raise taxes on "millionaires and billionaires," but not on the middle class. Apparently, if you don't happen to be a millionaire or billionaire, you don't have to worry.

But the numbers say otherwise — and say so big time.

The actual tax increase plans being proposed by Obama do not start with people who have an income of a million dollars a year. They start with people with incomes of $250,000 and up.

That is more than most people make, but it is far short of a million dollars, and miles away from a billion dollars. How many of the people who stand to get hit with Obama's higher tax rate plan are in fact either millionaires or billionaires?

According to the Internal Revenue Service, there are more than 2,700,000 people who earn $250,000 a year or more — and fewer than one-tenth of them earn a million dollars or more. So more than nine-tenths of the people who would be hit with the higher taxes supposedly aimed at "millionaires and billionaires" are neither.

When businesses advertise one thing and then actually sell something else, that is called "bait and switch" advertising. That is exactly what President Obama is doing with his proposed tax increases on "millionaires and billionaires."

It gets worse when you look at the potential economic consequences of the tax rate increases being proposed. The small proportion of the people targeted for Obama's higher tax rates who are in fact millionaires and billionaires have the least likelihood of actually paying the higher tax rates.

(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: classwarfare; obama; sowell; taxes; thomassowell
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1 posted on 09/04/2012 12:33:56 PM PDT by jazusamo
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To: jazusamo
Those are basically small business owners, whose working capital shows up on their personal income tax forms.

Obama wants to drive them out of business.

The big-government/big-corporate criminal complex doesn't like competition.

3 posted on 09/04/2012 12:37:28 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Government is the religion of the sociopath.)
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To: abigail2; Amalie; American Quilter; arthurus; awelliott; Bahbah; bamahead; Battle Axe; ...
*PING*
Thomas Sowell

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Recent columns
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Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to or removed from the Thomas Sowell ping list…

4 posted on 09/04/2012 12:38:33 PM PDT by jazusamo ("Intellect is not wisdom" -- Thomas Sowell)
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To: jazusamo

Tom is misusing the term millionaire here, but then so is Obama.

It originally meant someone whose net worth was more than $1M, not someone whose gross income was was more than $1M.

The second person would presumably have a net worth considerably more than $1M.

According to Wiki, there are about 10M US dollar millionaires in the entire world. Most of them obviously towards the low end of the threshold amount.

The world is not going to get out of its debt crisis by taxing the millionaires. There just aren’t enough of them.


5 posted on 09/04/2012 12:49:55 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (Perception wins all the battles. Reality wins all the wars.)
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To: jazusamo

May I congratulate you, or perhaps Dr. Sowell, on your tagline.

Absolutely true.

If anyone doesn’t believe this, I highly recommend attending a couple of Mensa meetings.


6 posted on 09/04/2012 12:52:49 PM PDT by Sherman Logan (Perception wins all the battles. Reality wins all the wars.)
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To: jazusamo
The small proportion of the people targeted for Obama's higher tax rates who are in fact millionaires and billionaires have the least likelihood of actually paying the higher tax rates.

No shi!. These are the business people of America and all tax increase will be passed on to the poor, middle class, and even to other rich. PRODUCT AND SERVICE INCREASES. Damn, how stupid Americans are.

7 posted on 09/04/2012 12:54:43 PM PDT by Logical me
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Those are basically small business owners, whose working capital shows up on their personal income tax forms. Obama wants to drive them out of business.

Stalin called them kulaks, which Solzhenitsyn patiently explained to us non-Russian speakers was a slur, and then he killed them by the tens of thousands. Murdered them, to make a whole class of successful farmers go away.

8 posted on 09/04/2012 1:03:59 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: jazusamo

O’Bamba’s entire political career has been one giant bait and switch. It’s all just a lie, and no truth ever passes The Won’s lips.

Thanks for the ping.


9 posted on 09/04/2012 1:06:38 PM PDT by TheOldLady
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Obama wants to drive them out of business.

My wife and I have had a small, 20-person company for well over 20 years now. Just last night we identified the criteria for making the decision to shut down the company.

If it's not reasonably profitable, why do it? Maybe I'll go get a government job(?)

10 posted on 09/04/2012 1:14:56 PM PDT by The Duke
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To: TheOldLady
O’Bamba’s entire political career has been one giant bait and switch. It’s all just a lie, and no truth ever passes The Won’s lips.

You're so right, TOL. You put it succinctly and you're dead on the money.

11 posted on 09/04/2012 1:20:41 PM PDT by jazusamo ("Intellect is not wisdom" -- Thomas Sowell)
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To: jazusamo

Same notion as “cutting” a trillion dollars over 10 years. A taxpayer is a “millionaire” if he could earn $1M over an extended period.

Oh, BTW: IIRC, the $250,000 line is really at $224,000.
Funny, the numeric value of “rich” keeps getting defined down while, given inflation, it should be going up.


12 posted on 09/04/2012 1:27:20 PM PDT by ctdonath2 ($1 meals: http://abuckaplate.blogspot.com)
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To: jazusamo

Thanks for the ping jaz.


13 posted on 09/04/2012 1:27:32 PM PDT by rockinqsranch (Dems, Libs, Socialists, call 'em what you will, they ALL have fairies livin' in their trees.)
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To: Sherman Logan
I take no credit for it, Dr. Sowell coined it and when I read it it jumped out at me.

He has an abundance of both.

14 posted on 09/04/2012 1:32:37 PM PDT by jazusamo ("Intellect is not wisdom" -- Thomas Sowell)
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To: The Duke
Just last night we identified the criteria for making the decision to shut down the company.

Does that mean that you have already met the criteria and you are shutting down?

What a shame.

15 posted on 09/04/2012 1:52:12 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Government is the religion of the sociopath.)
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To: jazusamo
Its sad but true that the majority of Americans are not politically astute and that is why leftist politicians still get away with selling them on 'tax the rich' as a solution to the fiscal problems the same politicians helped create. It's maddening that the left pulls this every single election and more so when people still buy it.

This is also how Democrats get away with opposing tax cuts; by claiming they are only 'for the rich' because, obviously, someone like Mitt Romney paying 4 million a year in taxes will see a bigger numerical benefit from even a tiny tax reduction on his 22 million dollar income than a guy paying a few thousand per year in income taxes. Yet, year after year, the left and it's media water carriers promote 'tax the rich' as a panaeca for economic woes and oppose 'tax cuts for the rich' that might actually help the middle class the left purports to love so much.

Thank God for sensible economists such as Dr. Thomas Sowell who explain these simple facts on an almost daily basis. Yes, few actually pay attention but the facts are there and folks like Dr. Sowell give conservatives factual ammunition to use against leftist loons mindlessly yelling 'tax the rich!'

16 posted on 09/04/2012 1:57:01 PM PDT by Jim Scott (Obama must be defeated)
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To: jazusamo

I wish Romney and Ryan would present this to the American people. So far, they haven’t.


17 posted on 09/04/2012 2:04:45 PM PDT by KansasGirl ("If you have a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."--B. Hussein Obama)
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To: jazusamo

Page ONE in The DemonRat Playbook:”CLSS WARFARE”!”RACISM”is next!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


18 posted on 09/04/2012 2:06:52 PM PDT by bandleader
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To: Sherman Logan

Yeah, nice Tagline, but I like mine better.


19 posted on 09/04/2012 2:32:56 PM PDT by libertylover (The problem with Obama is not that his skin is too black, it's that his ideas are too RED.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Does that mean that you have already met the criteria and you are shutting down?

No, we've identified a threshold below which if the balance drops we're going to initiate an orderly shutdown. That shutdown might take six months, but the layoffs will happen early on.

Hopefully it doesn't come to that, but we just climbed out from a mountain of debt, and we're not going back there.

20 posted on 09/04/2012 6:45:16 PM PDT by The Duke
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