Ballmer, Bezos Fund Effort To Undermine Bill Gates 866
theodp writes "You know what they say — it takes money to avoid paying money. TechFlash reports that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos have contributed $100,000 each to an effort to defeat an income tax on individuals in Washington state making more than $200,000. The backers of Initiative 1098, which is set for the November ballot, include Bill Gates (Sr.), who has emerged as one of the most vocal proponents of the income tax. Under the proposal, which has drawn the ire of the Bezos and Ballmer-backed Defeat 1098, no tax would be due on the first $200K of income, 5% tax would be owed on income between $200K and $500K, and everything above $500K would be subject to a 9% tax (cutoffs are doubled for joint returns)."
Re:Seattle COL (Score:5, Informative)
If you live in the metro, own a home, and your wife stays at home with the kids - making $200,000 hardly qualifies you as "rich". Especially if you are a small business owner.
From the Summary:
(cutoffs are doubled for joint returns).
The way I take this is they'd have to make 400K before they hit the tax.
You have it too easy currently (Score:1, Informative)
I pay 50% out of my sallary to tax and 25% sales tax on what i buy. But then again I have free education free health care and access to housing and more.
Balances out, I get what I pay for, you dont want to pay, so you get nothing :) Not to mention our government isnt bankrupt and in debt.
Re:Seattle COL (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Question, adjusted, remains (Score:3, Informative)
FTA:
Initiative 1098 calls for a reduction in state property taxes and the elimination of the business and occupation tax for some of the state's smallest businesses. Proceeds from the income tax would be used for health services and public education, proponents argue.
Since 1098 is reducing taxes for small businesses and lowering state property taxes, I'm guessing the answer is Washington State.
Re:Seattle COL (Score:2, Informative)
"...the median salary of $21,587 for the USA..." Its closer to $45K. 21K is poverty level. You would do well to check your facts.
Re:Whither 9%? (Score:4, Informative)
I can't really comment too much on the benefit of having the tax excised, since I live in Texas and we do not have state income tax, either. That is a real plus for me. I do like the fact that they skipped the entire section where people making less than 200k. I think that is wise.
However, to be fair. A sudden increase of 9% of the tax liability is quite a bit, from the perspective of going from 0 to 9% in one jump. Also there are no provisions on how to adjust the brackets up with the inflations in the coming decades. Keep in mind any tax code in place will be in place for a long time, so if the spirit of the law is to tax the highest income brackets, they need to address that in the proposed bill as well.
Flat Tax (Score:1, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Seattle COL (Score:4, Informative)
Unemployment is only 4.6% for those with a bachelor's degree or higher. Considering the kinds of jobs that are in the majority at Microsoft and Amazon, I'd say they're doing enough to create jobs already.
Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm [bls.gov]
captial gains != income (Score:4, Informative)
Their winnings from the stock market wouldn't be touched by this income tax.
Re:Seattle COL (Score:3, Informative)
Median salary per person was $25,149 in 2005 according to wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
Median salary per household was $$50,233 in 2007 according to wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
You would do well to check which figures you are arguing about.
WA has the most regressive tax in the nation (Score:5, Informative)
In Washington state currently, people earning less than $20,000 pay 17.3% in taxes. People earning over $537,000 pay just 2.9%
Even with this law, the richest will be paying less as a percentage of income than the poorest in the state.
This study (pdf) [itepnet.org] gives the numbers.
Re:Cry me a river, billionaires (Score:3, Informative)
Most didn't get that way from $400k household salary, they got that way from stock options which would likely be capital gains, not income. Although having no idea how Washington calculates income, I can only guess that it is the same as AZ, where it is based off the federal return, and the state (like the fed) has a lower capital gains rate completely un-effected by your income level (although it has been ~5 years since I made enough capital gains to care.)
Chicago is deaf (Score:2, Informative)
And so is Springfield. Even with those insane taxes, Illinois is so deep in the red that vendors are halting services after months of non-payment.
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/01/illinois-careens-towards-bankruptcy.html [blogspot.com]
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/05/illinois-doesnt-pay-bills-crisis-pushes.html [blogspot.com]
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/06/illinois-leaps-ahead-of-california-in.html [blogspot.com]
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/07/shared-sacrifice-illinois-style-40000.html [blogspot.com]
Re:This is a STATE tax, not a federal tax (Score:5, Informative)
The #1 use of your taxes is war [warresisters.org] and it's consequences, or here [investorguide.com], or the interactive chart [foxbusiness.com].
Re:This is a STATE tax, not a federal tax (Score:3, Informative)
Historical US tax rates were up to 92% (Score:5, Informative)
The top American marginal income rates from 1944 to 1963 were 92%. Yes, 92% of income made over the top amount, went to taxation. In 1944, if you made over $200,000, 92% went to the government. In 1963, it was $400,000. And yet, this was a period of profound economic expansion and middle class comfort. Kind of makes you want to question the "conventional wisdom" that all taxes are bad.
This is a list of American historical tax rates: http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/fed_individual_rate_history-june2010.pdf [taxfoundation.org]
Re:Flat Tax (Score:2, Informative)
But that is not how tax brackets work.
In your not fully fleshed out example, I'm assuming the rate is 30% below 40k and 35% above it, right?
That means if you made 39800 you would pay 11940 and take home 27860.
If you make 40200 you would pay 30% on the 1st 40k ($12000) and 35% on the remaining $200 (or $70)
So your total tax bill would be $12070, and you would take home $28130 which is shockingly more than $27860.
The tax codes weren't made by idiots, but by beaurocrats.
Re:Question, adjusted, remains (Score:3, Informative)
A strong argument in favor of my contention that wealth did not trickle down:
https://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/oss/oss2/2004/Chartbook.xls [federalreserve.gov]
I didn't say that I had an easy solution to this problem, just that trickle-down economics has not been in any way remotely demonstrated to work as advertised.
Re:Cry me a river, billionaires (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Seattle COL (Score:1, Informative)
Yes, the business income is taxed as personal. However, they also get to write off all of the business expenses, so they are still only paying taxes on their actual, personal income.
They could always incorporate their small business, but then they'd have to pay tax at the (usually) higher business rate... such a dilemma. Poor, small businessman scraping by on $200,000+ per year.
Progressive taxation and marginal utility (Score:3, Informative)
Imagine a flat tax of 10%. One person has $1 million, and pays $100,000. Another person has $100, and pays $10. Who will feel the greater loss?
Re:Question, adjusted, remains (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Whither 9%? (Score:2, Informative)
Rubbish. Tim Eyman, the Horses Ass [horsesass.org], successfully got rid of the percentage tab fee, now all vehicles pay $30 for their tabs. This is one of the major reasons the state has to consider other forms of income. The largest portion of the dollars in your yearly license fee is a tax for the RTA to fund the Light Rail and other transit initiatives. If you don't like it, move out of the 3 counties it's implemented in. If you have noticed that it's now faster for you to drive your single occupant SUV to work in the morning than it was 10 years ago, this tax is one of the reasons. The RTA tax is .3% of the value of your vehicle, so to get a bill for "thousands" of dollars, you had to buy a vehicle over 330K MSRP.
I bought a brand new vehicle for about 30K last year, and my tab renewal was just over $100.
200k is not a low threshold (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly what reality do you live in where 200k is a low threshold? That is not middle class. A household that earns 180k a year is in the top 5%. That means an individual earning 200k is within the top few percent.
It is HARD to earn 200k a year. If you think otherwise, you have no concept of "average". The median wage for workers varies depending on how it is calculated. On the high side, for full time workers, ages 25 to 64, it is approximately 40k. Median wages for those with doctorates are about 80k.
And speaking of an alternative reality, what politician is pandering to voters when they suggest raising taxes? Have you been living under a rock lately? It is precisely the opposite. Most are pandering by suggesting that lowering taxes will somehow create jobs and not affect the deficit (despite massive evidence to the contrary).
I have no issue with people who want low taxes and small government. It is just that I have never actually met any such people. And the only place to get the money for government is from the people who have it. Those same people who have benefited from decades of historically low tax rates and created historically low amounts of jobs and income increases for those jobs.
Re:Question, adjusted, remains (Score:4, Informative)
When these guys build new houses for themselves they create jobs. When they hire help to maintain those big homes they create jobs. When they buy new cars they create jobs. When they invest their money they create jobs.
I believe it was Napoleon Hill who gave the advice that if you want to get wealthy yourself you need to hang around with rich people, because just the opportunities they let slide because they might think they are "too small" will be enough to give you a good start on your way to wealth if you're ambitious enough to go after them. It wasn't stated in those exact words, but the meaning was the same.
I'm sorry that's wrong. There is a couple of problems with this. Your hypothetical CEO would buy how many cars in a 5 year period? 1? 2? Yeah, that would really stimulate the economy. Why do you assume your CEO would build a new home? how many homes do you think your hypothetical CEO would build? If you already a place on Lake Washington, prime real estate, why would you go anywhere else?
Let's consider giving the middle class all that money, how many cars do you think 50 people making 80K would buy if they came into money? How many can now afford to let someone else do their yards? How many books/dvd/theater are they going to do? I bet a lot omre than your single CEO. Let me give you a clue, the middle class runs this country. We are the engines of this economy. This country's market is the best market in the world because we are trained to spend. We are the ultimate consumers.You people who enable to rich are just cutting your own throat. They don't need your help. If they need to talk to govt they can attend a $2000 dollar a plate fundraiser and talk to the candidate directly. They got all kinds of avenues to whine.
sri