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BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____"
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Subject: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me $_____ From: Stilly River Sage Date: 28 Dec 12 - 11:58 AM It could range from $40 to $200 a month. Whether we tumble off of a sharply-delineated "Cliff" or slowly slide into a slump, there will be an impact with the next paycheck or two. If you're paid on December 31 for work performed in December you might have a month to wait for the impact, but I suspect a lot of us will see it begin next Tuesday on the Jan. 1 payday. There are two parts to this fiscal hit. The income tax part will mean a withholding tax at a rate that was typical in the 1990s, and there are fewer credits and interest deductions. The lower rates we have paid for the 10 or 12 years, whenever Dubya put it into effect, are what are called the "Bush-era tax cuts." He put them in place as a gift to his rich friends but as a sop gave the Average Joe a tax cut also (to get away with the one he really wanted to give millionaires.) In the Obama administration we have seen a lower withholding on the Social Security taxes, part of a stimulus move that was renewed once and now expires - in an increase in withholding from 4.2 to 6.2 percent. From U.S. News and World Report: So here's how the major aspects of the fiscal cliff are likely to affect ordinary people, assuming they go into effect beginning January 1, 2013: Also, there is that pesky Alternative Minimum Tax. Meant to get more tax from high-earning individuals, but somehow it is now in play for those with earnings as low as $34,000 or more. The italics are mine, to show that we'll have to wait and see when the higher income tax withholding begins. In my state when those amounts were about to shift in the last big standoff about 18 months ago, they withheld from my paycheck just to play it safe (that was before the social security withholding was extended.) All of this because the GOP wants to protect their very wealthy friends who earn so much they wouldn't know how to spend it all paycheck to paycheck. It's only fair that I lose about $200 a month so some rich guy doesn't have to pay more taxes. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Stilly River Sage Date: 28 Dec 12 - 12:03 PM People to watch as the cliff approaches from the Washington Post. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Jack the Sailor Date: 28 Dec 12 - 12:10 PM I think that in the long run we would all be better off paying the higher taxes. Confidence in the US economy would rise, confidence in the government would stop falling. Investment would rise. Job numbers would improve. The worst thing is the uncertainty. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: beardedbruce Date: 28 Dec 12 - 12:17 PM " All of this because the GOP wants to protect their very wealthy friends who earn so much they wouldn't know how to spend it all paycheck to paycheck. It's only fair that I lose about $200 a month so some rich guy doesn't have to pay more taxes. " WRONG. All of this because Obama wants to have the wealthy pay many thousands more each month, while you pay a few hundred. The percentage impact on the wealthy of the "cliff" is greater than that on you. But by demanding the higher taxes, and NO decrease in spending, Obama has made it easier for the GOP to accept the taxes, AND get some spending cuts that Obama would not otherwise give. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Jack the Sailor Date: 28 Dec 12 - 12:23 PM The percentage of disposable income impact is much much lower for the wealthy. Up to your income level it is the same. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: pdq Date: 28 Dec 12 - 12:25 PM Democrats have the Presidency, the Senate and the News Media. The Republicans have the House, by a reasonable majority, but many of their members will not raise taxes at the $250K level, which actually hurts farmers and small business owners making $170K per/married couple. Those folks just ain't the "millionaires and billionaires" that Obama constantly rails against (=class warfare). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Stilly River Sage Date: 28 Dec 12 - 12:31 PM Bruce, you don't make any sense, but that is typical. You drank the GOP koolaid and spout the party line. Amazing how they have convinced so many people to vote against their own self interest and dismiss an altruistic distribution of revenues to benefit all (for health care in particular - Medicaid for all would be a good start). The effect on me of proportional extra tax withholding is substantially different than if a rich person had to pay the same percentage of their salary to the IRS. The cuts the GOP will demand are the ones that affect lower income Americans. When those who haven't been paying close attention finally look at their upcoming paychecks, it may begin to dawn on them that something stinks, and it's coming from the Elephant House. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: pdq Date: 28 Dec 12 - 12:40 PM Due to the asinine game called "baseline budgeting" which the Democrats instituted years ago, a 12% increase in a given departemnt may be called a 3% cut if they said they expected a 15% increase. If businessmen were as dishonest as the Federal goverment with money matters, they would be in prison. This Fiscal Cliff issue is a piece of theater and anyone who takes it at face value, as presented by the Washington Compost and the New York Slimes, both house organs of the Democrats, is either and extreme partisan or a fool. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Jack the Sailor Date: 28 Dec 12 - 12:42 PM Do you "conservatives" ever think about the buzz phrases pumped into your hears before you spew them. Those folks just ain't the "millionaires and billionaires" that Obama constantly rails against (=class warfare). Here you both say that the people are not in a different class and that it is class warfare. I guess in your head it sounds reasonable. But from the outside it is gibberish. Also you are saying that a tax that is only on INCOME OVER 250 will "hurt people" making 170? By any sane measure it doesn't hurt people making 260,000 per year. Up to 250K they pay the same taxes, on the additional 10K they pay an additional $400. Please explain exactly how this is "Hurt?" Losing a leg in a war is "hurt" getting COPD from sleeping in a box is hurt. Having your take home pay go from $200,000 to 199,600 is not even an inconvenience. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Bobert Date: 28 Dec 12 - 12:43 PM The president is ready to sign a bill... The Senate will more than likely pass a bill... The GOP House probably won't let a bill to even be voted on... Do the math, bb... Dems 2 GOP 0 B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Jack the Sailor Date: 28 Dec 12 - 12:44 PM hears>> heads |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: JohnInKansas Date: 28 Dec 12 - 01:17 PM Another aspect of the "cliff:" Death and (estate) taxes sometimes go together John Carney, CNBC.com 28 December 2012 Because the "fiscal cliff" will not stop for death, it looks as if death's carriage may make a "kindly" stop to pick up some American millionaires this year, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson. In 2010, after a year in which the estate tax was zeroed out altogether, Congress passed a law that set the estate tax at 35 percent and exempted all estates under $5 million, adjusted for inflation. That law expires in January 2013 when the exemption will fall to $1 million and the tax will rise to 55 percent. Many families are faced with a stark proposition. If the life of an elderly wealthy family member extends into 2013, the tax bills will be substantially higher. An estate that could bequest $3 million this year will leave just $1.9 million after taxes next year. Shifting a death from January to December could produce $1.1 million in tax savings. ... It's well-known that people can delay death, for example, in order to live through significant dates—birthdays, holidays, anniversaries. In the first week of 2000, local New York City hospitals recorded an astonishing 50.8 percent more deaths than in the last week of 1999, according to the New York Times. Apparently, a significant number of people delayed their deaths in order to see the new millennium. ... Economists Wojciech Kopczuk of Columbia University and Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan studied how mortality rates in the United States were changed by falling estate taxes. They note that while the evidence of "death elasticity" is "not overwhelming," every $10,000 in available tax savings increases the chance of dying in the low-tax period by 1.6 percent. This is true both when taxes are falling, so that people are surviving longer to achieve the tax savings, and when they are rising, so that people are dying earlier, according to Kopczuk and Slemrod. [A little more at the link] John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Amos Date: 28 Dec 12 - 01:38 PM People have a range of costs-of living, depending on how much of an installation they are operating. A large house with gardeners and cooks costs a helluva lot more to run than a rented apartment. It can be argued that a healthy, prosperous family needs a second home int heir life-style. To argue that the same family needs seven homes is a lot harder to justify in terms of any reasonable human goals except for pure conspicuous consumption. But even the most high-scale living has a limit, and if you are bringing down a thousand times your cost of living, then the incremental tax burden approaches meaninglessness, a small part of your entirely discretionary income. If you are earning barely over your cost of living, then the same per centage tax burden becomes a threat to survival. If you cannot see the difference between these two states of affairs, relative to the common efforts of building the nation as a whole, then you are too short-sighted to form an informed opinion. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Ron Davies Date: 28 Dec 12 - 02:09 PM "farmers and small business owners..." Drivel. From one of our most reliable sources of same. The vast majority of small business owners don't make close to $250,000 per year. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: gnu Date: 28 Dec 12 - 02:17 PM JiK... why not just live forever to spite the bastards? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: dick greenhaus Date: 28 Dec 12 - 02:31 PM Just Curtious- How many of you have met someone who has a taxable (that's after deductions) income of over $250,000? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Stilly River Sage Date: 28 Dec 12 - 03:07 PM Not I. I will go on the record to note that I didn't like the idea of the Social Security withholding reduction - I think it should have been left alone. I would also remove the ceiling on the income calculations for paying into it. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Bobert Date: 28 Dec 12 - 03:18 PM Lets keep in mind that what Obama is proposing is a rate that will kick in after the 1st $250,000 of income... This is still a lower tax than the pre-Bush tax cuts... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Jeri Date: 28 Dec 12 - 05:35 PM I've met people who had taxable incomes over $250,000. I don't remember the ones I actually knew ever having a huge amount of liquid assets, because they invested. The could have, IMO, afforded paying more income tax. I could afford paying more, but I'd rather not pay the amount I'd have to to make up for what isn't paid by those who CAN afford new cars, more house/houses than they need, vacations to exotic locations, or any number or amount of things THEY DON'T NEED TO SURVIVE. I don't begrudge people having nice things, and I don't even automatically dislike wealthy people. It's how they treat other folks that counts. As for the fiscal whoopsie-daisy, the folks on TV have been saying both sides have GOT to let us go over it. Repubs, so they can save the day later on by "reducing taxes" and Dems, so they can point to Repubs and say "those guys didn't care enough about Americans to do their fucking jobs." Not much different than now, but with some fairly hard-to-ignore evidence. I think there's a slim possibility that something may happen to avert disaster, but I always try to expect magic. US politics has its own version of an infinite improbability drive, but it unfortunately follows Murphy's Law. I think that works out to "anything that can go wrong will, but it won't be what you expected." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: GUEST,999 Date: 28 Dec 12 - 07:18 PM The 'fiscal cliff' is a catch phrase and no one knows what it means. As Doug R used to say so often, "The sky is falling." If you read that Doug, I thought you wouldn't mind it being said once more. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Bobert Date: 28 Dec 12 - 07:29 PM Well, unfortunately, we do know what it means... It means that unemployment compensation will end immediately for millions of folks who have lost their jobs... That means they won't make their mortgage payments or rent... That means more foreclosures and homelessness... We already have hundreds of thousands of families living in their cars... It means that the folks who are barely hanging on will see major take-home pay cuts... 1/2 of Americans (working or not) are already living at 125% of poverty or less... A take-home pay cut will push hundreds of thousands, maybe into the millions closer to or below the poverty lines, which BTW, are already unrealistic... No, it won't be a cliff for the well-off or upper middle class but for half of Americans it will be a cliff... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: GUEST,999 Date: 28 Dec 12 - 07:38 PM Do you think the NDAA was really an act? I am aware of what looms. This ain't news. What looms is the same fucking thing that happened a few years back when banks foreclosed. This time, with luck, some of these bastards will be shot where they sit: congress! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Bobert Date: 28 Dec 12 - 07:42 PM Come on, brucie... Let's not starve out the bottom half of our population because we are pissed at the military/industrial complex... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: GUEST,999 Date: 28 Dec 12 - 07:45 PM Come on, Bob. If you think it is possible, please don't dump that on me. You say "starve off". WTF you think has been going on for about 4 years now? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Bobert Date: 28 Dec 12 - 07:50 PM What has been going on is an obstructionist congress f'n over the country the best it could but, unless I missed your point, you are willing to let US go off the cliff so that sequestration will hurt NDAA??? No??? B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: GUEST,999 Date: 28 Dec 12 - 07:53 PM Clear out your damned sinuses. I said nothing of the sort. What I DID say is I don't think you have a choice. You made that choice years ago when the crooks got away with it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Bobert Date: 28 Dec 12 - 07:55 PM Then, hey, I apologize... I love's ya, brucie... B;~) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: JohnInKansas Date: 28 Dec 12 - 09:45 PM How many of you have met someone who has a taxable (that's after deductions) income of over $250,000? At one little pub session some years back, one of our friends was celebrating the reversal of a state law limiting punitive damages in civil liability cases, and bought a "round for the house." The reversal made "him" (his estimate of the effect for his firm of some 40 attys on the case) $40,000,000 in one swell foop. It is a certainty that ALL of the 90 or so people there knew him and considered him something of a friend. (I was, I think, the only one there that night that bought him one, but it's a hard habit to break.) About a year later, Forbes Magazine ran an article on "highest paid lawyers" and ranked him no 3, as I recall, so his income was pretty consistent over a significant period. They said he made $9,000,000 that year, but he commented "they found about a third of it." Four or five "insurance peddlers" claimed "Million a Year" sales, and best estimate is that their commissions were easily over the $250,000 for each of those years. At least one, a "family friend of my then mother-in-law, claimed ten years straight. One self-described "worthless ol' fart" who worked for my dad for about 10 years, had "a little farm land" that netted about $300,000 per year, but he worked for $3.50/hr "because he liked having something to do." He "retired" at about age 97 (and still hittin' on the gal who ran the liquor store across the street from the cheap hotel where he lived). Toss in a fistful of "corporate executives" and other assorted unclassifiables, and you come up with quite a few that lots of people knew, even if they didn't have any idea how much they raked in. YOU likely have known more of them than you think you did. The ones worth knowing don't necessarily stand out in a crowd, most of the time. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: GUEST,999 Date: 28 Dec 12 - 10:19 PM Honest people pay taxes. Dishonest people pay dividends. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: sciencegeek Date: 29 Dec 12 - 12:32 AM well, I know a few very nice folks who happen to be worth millions.... but I grew up in a lower middle class area and am still a member of the 99%. I have also met more than a few folks who think that their sh*t is odorless due to their well padded bank accounts... Our congress is a national disgrace thanks to the nuts known as the tea party, where before it was limited more to disgraceful behavior. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Bobert Date: 29 Dec 12 - 09:19 AM In the 1950s the tax rates were 91% on incomes of $250,000 and guess what??? You didn't have all these rich crybabies... If you go to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and drive by the marinas there you come away with a perspective of just how much money people actually have as there are rows and rows of million dollar boats lined up row after row after row... Then you drive through Great Falls, Va and look at the houses... Miles and miles of $5M houses... This is how the upper 2% live and they are weeping over paying 39.6% on income exceeding $250,000 a year??? Give me a break... $250,000 a year to me is rich, rich, rich... No two ways about it... I mean, if I can live comfortably on 1/5th of that then these people should be able to eek out a comfortable living on $250,000... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Jack the Sailor Date: 29 Dec 12 - 10:36 AM Buttttt Theyyyyy areeee the Jooooobbbbb Creators Cried the orange man in the blue suit! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: GUEST,999 Date: 29 Dec 12 - 10:39 AM Yeah, they sure are. Resourceful, too. Three workers for the price of one. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Bobert Date: 29 Dec 12 - 11:55 AM Ye4ah, JtS... They keep a lot of folks employed building their yachts and mansions... No thanks to that economic model... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Jack the Sailor Date: 29 Dec 12 - 12:45 PM The yachts are built in Italy aren't they? The big ones anyway. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Stilly River Sage Date: 29 Dec 12 - 01:26 PM If as part of the process they would streamline and simplify the tax code, that would be a welcome change. But it is in the complexity that they hide all of the perks for friends and supporters. SRS (who is finishing up research on materials to be donated before Dec. 31 for the 2012 tax year) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Stilly River Sage Date: 30 Dec 12 - 10:02 AM The news this Sunday morning says "They're still working on it." Like cramming for finals. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: GUEST,999 Date: 30 Dec 12 - 10:48 AM "Those Barely in Top Brackets Brace for a Hit People in Households Earning $200,000 to $500,000 Resign Themselves to Tax Increases Even If They Don't Feel Superrich" I snagged that headline because I thought y'all would appreciate it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 30 Dec 12 - 02:33 PM It strikes me that high tax rates on the rich encourages them to pay themselves even more. The better way would be to impose a maximum income and maximum wealth rule at some reasonable level, say twice the overall average. Three times more maybe, as a compromise. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Stilly River Sage Date: 30 Dec 12 - 07:02 PM That alternative minimum tax is going to slap a lot of people upside the head. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: GUEST,999 Date: 30 Dec 12 - 07:39 PM SRS, would you explain that, SVP? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: JohnInKansas Date: 31 Dec 12 - 08:28 AM The Alternate Minimum Tax was created to prevent those with sufficiently high incomes from finding sufficient loopholes to avoid paying any tax at all. If your taxable income is above a certain level, a minimum tax is specified, and you must pay at least that amount regardless of what tax you calculate by applying all the exemptions and deductions you can find. The "trigger amount" at which the AMT becomes applicable has been changed many times, and hardly anyone knows for sure what it is; but the "cliff" results in expiration of "temporary limits" so that people in approximately the range between $75,000 to somewhere in the vicinity of $125,000 (?) who generally didn't pay according to the AMT will be subject to it if no other changes are made by the current session of Congress. The AMT calculation generally disallows certain "deductions" that would otherwise apply, resulting in a significant increase in the tax. The tax rate is essentially the same as for income calculated otherwise, but with certain deductions disallowed. The AMT apparently does not apply to the Capital Gains Tax which applies a rate of 15% rather than the 26%(?) rate for earned income. For a complete explanation one can look at the Wikipedia Explanation which I'm sure will make it all exceedingly clear**. ** (Like Hell it will.) John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: MarkS Date: 31 Dec 12 - 11:40 AM Watching the "negotiations" between the dems and repubs reminded me of a very old joke. Ivan Awfulitch has one cow. Dimitri Digaditch has two cows. The end of the world is announced. Somebody asks Ivan "What will you do???" Ivan replies, "Shoot one of Dimitris' cows." Has our politics really come to this? Mark |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Stilly River Sage Date: 31 Dec 12 - 12:42 PM Thanks, John, for answering Bruce's question. I've been working on a tax item myself this week - a donation that will credit in the 2012 year if I get the collection delivered to the library this afternoon. It's a squeaker. It's a great gift, a very large collection of local and regional playbills dating back to the 1950s that I found at an estate sale. I'm donating it to my university research library's special collections, so I'm glad there are mechanisms in place where if you have something truly valuable research-wise that you can assign an appraised value and give it to someone else to make use of and get a tax credit for the donation. I hope they don't consider this a loophole to do away with. My puny taxes are a lot of work because I can't afford to pay accountants to do them. I can get a whiff of savings by using a couple of loopholes put in place for the super rich. Let's see if those loopholes stick around, or if the GOP slaps everyone if they can't preserve loopholes for the rich. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: akenaton Date: 31 Dec 12 - 05:15 PM Nobody said we were going to be treated fairly. What they did say when capitalism fucked up...is....Were all in this together. What that means, is the poor are going to be squeezed till the pips squeak and the rich are going to sit back and enjoy it. Isn't equality wonderful??? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Bobert Date: 31 Dec 12 - 05:39 PM As a progressive (liberal) I'm pretty pissed that the Dems are talking about $450,000... What a joke... I mean, if the entire idea is to reduce the deficit then exempting folks up to $450,000 a year won't raise squat... Get real and spine, Democrats... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Greg F. Date: 31 Dec 12 - 05:53 PM Sorry, Beardie, but you're wrong - or just lying - as usual. The "cliff" is the usual TeaPublican invention & disinformation melodrama. We're not talking tax increases, but tax restoration, to reverse the disastrous George Dumbya give-a-way to the rich which put the country in the econiomic toilet it now finds itself in. Better yet, lets return to the 1960's tax rates of 90% of income over $200,000 dollars - & stop whining about percentages in the 30% bracket. Oh, have pity on the the poor, poor persecuted billionaire. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: GUEST,999 Date: 31 Dec 12 - 08:24 PM Shit, Greg, if that poor fucker gets taxed at 90% he's only gonna have 100,000,000 left. Have you no heart? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: Greg F. Date: 31 Dec 12 - 08:44 PM Yeah, I know, Bruce, I'm a heartless, communistic, socialistic class warrior - kinda like Joel Hägglund. Maybe they'll shoot me too, if they get a chance. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Thanks, GOP. Fiscal Cliff will cost me "$____" From: JohnInKansas Date: 31 Dec 12 - 08:45 PM One recent opinion piece offered the argument that $250,000 per year income is really only "middle class" because lots of people need multiple limos for business, and people who earn that much are probably boomers with a couple of kids in college with $60,000 per year tuition (each), and they probably need at least a couple of homes "for business purposes." Almost made me shed a tear. Maybe the higher tax rate shouldn't start until at least $250,002? John |
