TAX POLITIX
The Politics of Taxes
The Buffett Rule, AMT, and Tax Reform
Why would the President, in this sluggish economic environment, add huge tax complications just for temporary items? Bowles-Simpson, published nearly a year ago, urged Congress to consider revisions to the tax code. Momentum for this proposal has gained considerable traction on both sides, and yet the Obama administration refuses to even consider it. Their idea of revising the tax code is tacking on millions of taxpayer dollars via tax credits to subsidize the pet issues of various...
Capital Gains and the Wealthy
The concept of an American President going after people making a lot of money and paying a relatively low tax rate on it is particularly naïve; it displays an absolute lack of familiarity with how people get wealthy. As a CPA, I can attest to the fact that the most common way people accumulate massive wealth is either by a huge amount of hard work (creating a successful business) or selling an asset (an invention, real estate, etc). Many people who file tax returns with large amounts of...
Occupiers and Crony Capitalism
The most irksome thing about the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is the phony crony capitalist fever going on. The truth of the matter is that, if OWS individuals were honestly seeking to engage and change, and really understood how capitalism works, they'd be for capitalism and against Obama. The very act of bailouts is anti-free market. It is the opposite of capitalism. Those companies who received bailouts abused their free market capitalist competitors by cozying up to the...
AMT: Is it Necessary?
The Alternative Minimum Tax (“AMT”) presents hardships to the practitioner as well as the taxpayer who prepares his own return by, as its name implies, imposing a second tax calculation mechanism on taxpayers. It serves virtually no useful purpose, other than the raising of an ever-increasing amount of tax revenue. But it has become very clear in recent years that this AMT tax revenue is not coming from just the taxpayers who were the intended targets of this tax. The AMT was instituted in its...
TEA or OWS?
Tom Palmer, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, penned the following piece over at Policymic. Tom rightly gets to the heart of the matter in his summation at the end of the essay. "Government debts and printing-press money will harm future generations. It’s unfair. It’s immoral. And it’s going to be solved not by occupying Phoenix, or Wall Street, or Atlanta, but by demanding that spendthrift politicians stop the bailouts and the cronyism, put the brakes on spending, and pay attention to a...
Goldberg on Biden
"...the current vice president...talks like the sort of guy who sits right next to you on the bus even though there are plenty of empty seats — just so he can explain how squirrels aren’t mammals." Indeed, in many respects, he’s as close as American politics gets to a wacky sitcom character who’s a couple fries short of a Happy Meal. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/280847/biden-sticks-playbook-jonah-goldberg
Fact Check: Obama, taxes, and legislation
I've seen very few fact checks pertaining to Obama's record and/or speeches. USA Today did a nice little round-up of some recent claims by Obama regarding the jobs bill, taxes, etc. I've reproduced it below in it's entirety because it was simple and straightforward. AP fact check: Obama claims miss some evidence By Jim Kuhnhenn, The Associated Press WASHINGTON – In challenging Republicans to get behind his jobs bill Thursday, President Obama argued Republicans have supported his proposals...
Investing in the Future
It seems like the administration and media these days are spending a lot of their energy complaining about the growing disparity between the haves- and have-nots. Many explanations are bandied about in an attempt to show that “devious policies” are causing the wide gulf between higher and lower income earners. These devious policies include special benefits for the wealthy, corporate welfare, and a tax system that favors those with higher incomes. But there are no special benefits for the...
Classifying Millionaires and Billionaires
Class warfare has become a key component of Obama’s policies and re-election rhetoric. The components of such a tactic are easily recognized: 1) the political opponent will hurt those among us who are most vulnerable (elderly, poor, etc); 2) the political opponent does not care about the “middle class”; 3) the political opponent wants to benefit those most advantaged (the rich/elite). The third point of this strategy is the one that is most popular with Obama, as he continuously and...
Taxes and the Wealthy
It didn't take long for Obama to begin talk about eliminating tax cuts for the wealthy. In fact, this is shaping up to be a major theme of his reelection campaign. Thankfully for the Republicans, this position serves to highlight his continued economic incompetence. As a practicing CPA for nearly forty years, the wealthy are my clients and they are assuredly the ones paying the most taxes. The people in the highest tax bracket fall into three categories 1) Small business owners (200-2000...
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