Posted by
Richard on Thursday, October 30, 2008 8:45:09 AM
The rich do not pay their fair share in taxes! There I said it. However they do in fact, they pay more than their fair, or should I say fare share, pun definitely intended. All of us by now know that some 2/5ths or roughly 40% of Americans pay no income taxes at all; zero, zip, nada, zilch. Additionally we all know that 5% of the top earning brackets pay way more than half of all federal taxes. Sadly that just doesn’t seem to be enough so what is a government to do. Well the answer lies in the phrase that I had coined some two weeks ago at
townhall.com called Obamanomics.
As mentioned Obamanomics is, a political/ideological theory disguised as an economic one. It is Marxism at its best or in reality at its worst, each according to his ability to each according to his means, aka “spreading the wealth around” The idea that a government can stimulate the economy by punishing the wealthy is
nothing very new, but has yet to ever really succeed anywhere that it is tried. Just ask any Eastern European nation, whose governments are embracing capitalism with a passion, by passing flat-tax legislations, lowering corporate taxes. For example, Ireland now has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world at around 12%, while the US ranks second on the world scale. As Amail Imani has stated in a
piece written yesterday at American Thinker,
“Obama doesn't tell you that in the present world money is like water. It flows to the lowest ground. And the lowest ground for money is found in places where it can make more money -- not locations where it is seriously tapped by government…[he] doesn't tell you that rich people didn't get to be rich by being stupid. The minute they hear him talk about ‘"spreading the wealth around"’, they shift their money to safe havens where Obama can't get to it.”
All of this is the main thrust of this article, and that is the fact that (1), the wealthy will always find ways to pay less in taxes, and (2)corporations, sooner or later after having been taxed to death will finally give up in disgust and either move, or sell out as in the case of the owner of the Miami Dolphins, Mr. H. Wayne Huizenga who has
stated,
‘“that he intends to sell up to half his ownership in the NFL franchise before next year. Why? Because as he told a Florida newspaper, Barack Obama "wants to double the capital gains tax, or almost double it. I'd rather give it to charity than to him."‘
So what is the net result here? Well for starters, where there is less cash flow there is less investment. Less investment means fewer opportunities for business owners to expand, which in turn results in less jobs. Following on the heels of this line of reason, less jobs means less people employed, and guess what less employment means; a smaller tax-base. All of this equals less revenue for the government coffers.
Secondly, let us look at increasing taxes on corporations. Have you ever gone into your local store and seen this cute little sign?
“we don’t charge taxes, we just collect them”
Well it has a great deal of truth behind it. Corporations will always, I repeat always, collect taxes, and then pass the cost off to the consumers. It’s that simple. However, there comes a time when a corporation becomes less financially secure each time there is an increase in taxes. If it continues to pass on the costs there exists the probability that said corporation will start to become unprofitable, that is to say, it will be forced to raise the cost of its item each time and thereby sell less items. IF you started to see increased prices in an item, you routinely purchased, would you not look elsewhere for a similar item at a cheaper price.
As mentioned above corporations are always on the lookout for having to pay less in taxes. I made note earlier above in this piece that Ireland with its 12% tax rate is becoming a corporate haven. How many jobs are going to be lost to overseas nations that have the foresight to continually lower tax-rates for business and citizens alike?
The other day, I had a conversation with a co-worker, and he had mentioned that already the defining downwards of what constitutes wealthy has already begun. I admitted that I hadn’t heard of anything until last evening when I came upon another
piece at American Thinker. This little tidbit was based on interview with VPOTUS candidate Senator Joe Biden at WNEP-TV. We both concluded, that we’d soon be in this category if you factor in our benefits packages etc, which the IRS, would no doubt do under even more odious and heavier tax codes. How soon will it be before 75k is a threshold or 50k becomes the cut off point?
With the prospect of a congress controlled by a party whose appetite for spending seems to be insatiable, (admittedly Republicans fared little better), and a POTUS, whose tax policies will only increase that appetite we are faced with a rather gloomy economic future.
That is the reality, it’s not that complicated to understand but rather quite plain and simple, and it is most certainly not some utopian pipedream.