ABC News reports on some poor souls who currently make more than $250,000 a year and are contemplating ways to reduce their income to avoid the Obama administration’s proposed top-bracket tax increases.
A 63-year-old attorney based in Lafayette, La., who asked not to be named, told ABCNews.com that she plans to cut back on her business to get her annual income under the quarter million mark should the Obama tax plan be passed by Congress and become law.
So far, Obama’s tax plan is being looked at skeptically by both Democrats and Republicans and therefore may not pass at all.
“We are going to try to figure out how to make our income $249,999.00,” she said.
“We have to find a way out where we can make just what we need to just under the line so we can benefit from Obama’s tax plan,” she added. “Why kill yourself working if you’re going to give it all away to people who aren’t working as hard?“
Why? Well here’s a a reason, Ms. LouisianaLawyerPants: Because you’re a greedy shitbird living in one of the poorest states in the country, and your tax money goes for some kind of useful things, like schools, roads, hurricane monitoring, and the fucking Army Corps of Engineers, who recently saved you from drowning in your own damned basement. (I know Lafayette isn’t New Orleans. My point remains.)
Oh, and people who don’t make as much money as you are still working hard, you asshole.
Also, do you and ABC News even know how income tax works? Media Matters would like to explain it to you.
The ABC article is based on the premise that an individual’s entire income is taxed at the same rate. If that were the case, it would be possible for a family earning $249,999 to have a higher after-tax income than a family earning $255,000, because the family earning $249,999 would pay a lower tax rate.
But that isn’t actually how income tax works.
In reality, a family earning $255,000 will pay the higher tax rate only on its last $5,001 in income; the first $249,999 will continue to be taxed at the old rate. So intentionally lowering your income from $255,000 to $249,999 is counter-productive; it will result in a lower after-tax income.
To be fair, the ABC piece does mention that the one way this strategy could pay off would be if your new tax bracket raises the value of your deductions, which is something Obama has proposed.
But ABC doesn’t want to dwell on that boring bit of sense, they’d rather move along to the last big, bold section header, “Does Obama Tax Plan Promote Class Warfare?,” and close with a Colorado dentist declaring that he is “already over-taxed” and he works ever-so-hard, and it’s JUST NOT FAIR.
46
I love it when Liberals get all “take it to the streets!”.
Don’t forget your pink berets.
When it hits the fan your Democratic big tent mates in the hood won’t leave much, what they miss the NRA folks will pick off.
No one is saying that a ditch digger and a software engineer (say) should earn the same amount of money. Those who have invested the time and money getting an education to do the jobs needed for our 21st century economy should be rewarded with a higher standard of living than those who do work that requires fewer skills. (Luck, of course, largely determines who can actually get the better education.) But I don’t think that was this woman’s point. She said people who “work harder”, although I suspect she wouldn’t last a day doing construction under the hot Louisiana sun (might break a nail, poor thing).
This woman believes, like many Americans, that lack of money is a character defect. It is part of the national myth that anyone who works hard can become rich. Conversely, anyone who is not rich is either stupid or lazy or both. Looking for someone to blame? Forget Dr Spock, try Horatio Alger.
@51:
Problem with gunz iz they ain’t worth shit when they runz outta bulletz.
@52: Who married his money.
It’s amazing that the woman can get not one but TWO degrees and yet still be an idiot. I hope she doesn’t manage wills or give financial advice.
@52: It’s interesting that you say some should be rewarded with a higher standard of living, then go one to say that it’s largely luck that determines who gets to be some of the few. I suppose that just hammers down the point of taxes, really: more tax dollars invested into education infrastructure would probably help take luck out of the equation.
Can we give up the idea that kids need to spend 12 years learning about selected portions of American history (revolutionary war to civil war) and instead teach them things like, I don’t know, tax brackets, real science, and modern society, etc? Here’s an idea: you want good citizens? Stop telling them how great our founding fathers and country are, and show it instead by investing them with a world class education (and an opportunity to do well) they can’t get anywhere else. They won’t grow up to believe the kind of crap this woman is spouting, and instead realize the importance of tax dollars (tax dollars well spent, that is). Oh, and they’ll look twice when banks are given 800 billion no strings attached.
Jesus, I hate this country sometimes.
Six months ago, the Left was a bunch of latte-sippin’ elitists who control everything. Now, we’re a bunch of lazy welfare queens who want to punish prosperity. I guess you can have it both ways.
@56
I guess you haven’t been keeping up – the new talking point, at least around Slog, seems to be that the latte-sippin’ elitist branch of the Left are a bunch of pampered naive snobs who don’t realize that the lazy welfare queen branch are just waiting for the right moment, then they’re going to turn on us and rape our daughters, steal our shoes, and turn America into a ghetto where the only currency is bullets inscribed with lines from hip-hop.
Or that’s what I hear from the racists who troll this joint, anyhow.
Wow!
Really?
Welfare queens are gonna rape our daughters with hip-hop bullets?
Good god man, we’ve GOT to do something!!!!
Quick to the Pundit-Mobile.
Save us Rush-E-Wan Kenobe, you’re our only hope.
I just want to point out that giving the ACOE money so they can save New Orleans (again) is a bit like a pedophile a job teaching kindergarten, since they’re half the reason the crappy city flooded in the first place.
We can never be socialists because we have Calvin in our bones and blood, in our lazy asses, and in our blistered and broken hands. I think a socialist would recoil a bit comparing landscaping to whatever white collar well paying thing you do. The socialist mindset is: we’re all in this together, all work has meaning and contributes. Our Calvinist roots argue that the poor must deserve it. And we are set up to divide and divide each other, rather than to recognize our common interests. What we have done though is better tax policy. I’ve thought in recent months how the phrase “The New Deal,” got it just right. Tax policy is the deal, and we need a new one. And it’s just a deal, it isn’t The Ten Commandments. The present deal encourages those w/access to capital to gamble. Oh, that didn’t work. The deal we need now will encourage those w/capital to use it, not in the casino, but maybe back into their business, or maybe into taxes that will make health care affordable, and therefore reduce an expense of their business.
“I just want to point out that giving the ACOE money so they can save New Orleans (again) is a bit like a pedophile a job teaching kindergarten, since they’re half the reason the crappy city flooded in the first place.”
I just want to point out that being a pedophile doesn’t mean that you can’t teach kindergarten effectively, just that the supplemental compensation is beyond what most communities are willing to allow.
@38 I think you are confusing Indemnity with Insurance.
Hey 38, I re-read your post and I take it back. I think you are right. Social Security is not insurance, it’s more like an annuity.
I think we’re confusing Anti-American Neocon Unpatriotic Scum with thinking people …
They’re not.
Solution – print more money and lower taxes. The economy’s down the shitter and people attribute wealth as happiness, so obviously more money and lower taxes is the answer to everything.