Debate Over Tax Cuts Centers on the Rich

[realFedUp]

(forget terrorism, the AMT is a timebomb)

http://www.latimes.com/business/taxes/la-na-taxes7dec07,1,1745469.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Debate Over Tax Cuts Centers on the Rich
More relief from the alternative minimum tax and low rates for dividends and capital gains get most of lawmakers' attention.

By Joel Havemann, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The tax-cut debate in Congress resumes today as a contest between the merely rich and the super-rich. Congressional leaders are working on a way to make winners out of both.

The Senate has passed a bill that, in the most costly of its many provisions, would include one more year of relief from the alternative minimum tax, which was added to the tax code in 1969 to prevent the wealthy from sheltering most of their income. Nearly half of the benefits of that provision, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, would go to taxpayers with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000.

Those are the merely rich.

The House will probably pass a bill, approved by its Ways and Means Committee, that would cut taxes by about the same amount as the Senate bill, but by different methods. It would leave the alternative minimum tax alone and instead extend for two years the historically low 15% tax rate on investment income.

The low tax rates that apply to dividends and capital gains — the profits on the sale of assets, such as stocks — are scheduled to expire at the end of 2008. More than half of the benefits of extending them through 2010, according to the Tax Policy Center, would be enjoyed by taxpayers with incomes of more than $1 million.

Those are the super-rich.

continued

[BlueEyedSon]

1. "Debate Over Tax Cuts Centers on the Rich" ..... really? nt

[realFedUp]

2. those damn copy editors....

making us have to read whole articles for the truth...

[hfojvt]

3. can this be a campaign issue?

Pound it! Pound it! Shout it from the roof-tops!!

Tax cuts for rich investors. no tax cuts for workers.

If they say it is for economic growth, respond with two words - trickle down. Okay three more - doesn't work.

[Dark]

4. Why don't we get rid of the defecit, properly fund our schools,

ensure health care for Americans, protect the environment?

Then, the rich can have their tax cut.

[realFedUp]

5. and the rich don't give up their Medicare.....

what, pay full price for a hospital stay?

[smb]

6. The GOP Game

They want to push a program that extracts lots of extra tax revenue out of the upper-middle class (i.e. people somewhere around $100k, give or take a factor of two). These are generally the sort of people who genuinely did pull themselves up by the bootstraps through solid middle-class values of financial prudence and hard work. When they get squeezed dry, it lends credibility to the argument that taxes punish hard work and intelligence.

[gratuitous]

7. FINALLY!

Isn't it about time someone considered the heart-breaking plight of the over-rich and the horrible burden they bear for us all? I'm so glad Congress is able to shove aside consideration of niggling things like war, poverty, corporate greed and their own corruption to focus on the over-rich, a neglected minority of our society whose time has come at last for them to get just a little bit (more) back. Many's the night I've lain awake in bed, worrying about some billionaire being laughed at for having last year's yacht or not having a fully-stocked wine cellar. Bitter tears I've cried, furious at the injustice of a world where the over-rich have to pay taxes to support the system that has set them over other mortals, keeping them from realizing the full extent of their ascendancy.

God bless you, Republican Congress! Or, if not God, then your over-rich benefactors.

[realFedUp]

15. lol sadly....nt

[UpInArms]

8. update: U.S. House backs alternative minimum tax patch

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2005-12-07T191454Z_01_N07239253_RTRIDST_0_CONGRESS-TAXES.XML

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved legislation to ensure that as many as 19 million taxpayers will not be forced to pay the alternative minimum tax next year.

The House voted 414-4 to extend for one year a temporary patch that will keep the number of taxpayers paying the AMT, about 3 million this year, from exploding next year. The tax was originally supposed to apply only to the very rich but now affects many more middle class households.

The AMT, called the "stealth tax" because many taxpayers are unaware it, was enacted in 1969 so that a few hundred of the wealthiest Americans did not take advantage of so many tax breaks that they ended up not paying any income tax at all.

...more...

[Megahurtz]

9. Those Fuckers!

Dithering over how to assist the rich.:puke:

[badgervan]

10. the Irresponsibility is Staggering...

70 billion in tax cuts to the already rich. 50 billion in aid cuts to the poor, the elderly, the old, the disabled, students, etc. Remember these figures.
All China has to do is utter two words, "Pay Up", and we are absolutely in the biggest Depression the world has ever witnessed.
Our so-called "leaders" are not only irresponsible, they are insane. While bush and friends talk up our "great economy", good jobs and benefits continue to be cut and/or outsourced, replaced by crap jobs that have little or no benefits and pay around 8 bucks an hour - and you are lucky to get a 40 hour week. Real buying power continues to drop, 22% over the past five years. Record deficits - no other administration in history has even come close. 7 billion a week for a war that cannot be won ( Dean is right ). Mega-Billions just gone "missing" from Rummy's mismanaged fiasco in the middle east.
And I could go on for pages. We must remember these figures, and we must hammer these facts home to all who would vote republican in 2006 and 2008. They have to see that their true interests are NOT being responsibly represented/managed by the republican party. Not even close.

[texpatriot2004]

11. Well said Badgervan and Welcome to DU nm

[saigon68]

16. Welcome badgervan

Good to see you here :-) :-)

[corporatemedia]

12. What's the problem? Tax the poor to feed the rich. Seems aout right to.

CORPORATE MEDIA

[EVDebs]

13. #1 Drop the tax cuts to the richest, those making over $3 Million yr

#2 Make the Capital Repatriation program, in effect for this year only, PERMANENT; raise the rates on it when the economy begins 'picking up'.

#3 Make David Cay Johnston's book Perfectly Legal mandatory reading for all federal and state officeholders.

[EVDebs]

14. Full title to David Cay Johnston's book is informative too...

Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich -- and Cheat Everybody Else

[ticapnews]

17. Tonight's Daily Show is a must-see for the taxcut story

"So how much should a family of four making $14,000 a year invest in oil companies?"

[realFedUp]

18. their investment is at the pumps and in their heaters....

I haven't hated Republicans in Congress as much
as the last two weeks. We've officially come to
the end of an era.