Why Your Tax Cut Doesn't Add Up

[onehandle]

Behind the promises to save you money, a hidden agenda is at work, with a stealth tax to pay for it all

snip...

The blather from both sides obscures the real, but largely hidden, agenda behind the Bush tax cuts. Bush has been open about each item he wants: lowering taxes on capital income, such as dividends and capital gains; creating two big new income-sheltering investment plans; eliminating the estate tax. But he's not been at all forthcoming about the ultimate effect of his program. If Bush gets what he wants, the income tax will become a misnomer—it will really be a salary tax. Almost all income taxes would come from paychecks—80 percent of income for most families, less than half for the top 1 percent. Meanwhile taxpayers receiving dividends, interest and capital gains, known collectively as investment income, would have a much lighter burden than salary earners—or maybe none at all. And here's the topper. In the name of preserving family farms and keeping small businesses in the family, Bush would eliminate the estate tax and create a new class of landed aristocrats who could inherit billions tax-free, invest the money, watch it compound tax-free and hand it down tax-free to their heirs.

By drastically favoring investment income over salary, fees and other "earned income," Bush would make it harder for people who start out with nothing to earn their way up the economic ladder, because they'd pay full taxes on almost everything they make, but he'd shower rewards on people who have already made it to the top rungs.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4660655/

[Yavin4]

1. Yep. John Edwards Talked About This During the Primaries

The Repig goal is two-fold: (1) underfund social programs so that they whither away and die and (2) shift the entire tax burden onto wage earners so that they rebel against government programs.

[Skittles]

2. anyone who hasn't figured out this is what Bush Inc is all about

is an idiot.

[Redleg]

3. Thanks for the link.

Of course many of us here at DU alreadys suspected that anyway. It's always nice to see the media confirm our suspicions.

[question everything]

5. But this is the "liberal media" ;-) n/t

[hedda_foil]

4. This is actually Newsweek's cover story!

[MaineDem]

6. What tax cut??

I'm receiving a pension and actually owe MORE taxes this year. I can't figure it out. All this talk from the GOP about tax cuts pisses me off.