Taxing my brain

While the economy spins faster and faster down the toilet, the President decides that tax cuts are in order. And the biggest benefit of these tax cuts are people who get dividends on their stock portfolios. The amount of people who will get these benefits is tiny, and those people already have assloads of money. How this is supposed to help typical Americans is beyond my tiny pea brain.

The rationale for this benefit is the plea that taxing dividends is taxing money twice. (The same rationale is also used to explain why estate taxes are so burdensome.) How is this "double taxation?" In simple terms:

1. A company earns money.
2. A company pays taxes on its earnings. (Ha ha ha, sure they do.)
3. A company pays dividends to shareholders.
4. Taxes must be paid on those dividends.

See, plain as day, that's double taxation. That's not fair, is it?

While we are at, let's review this too:

1. A company earns money.
2. A company pays taxes on its earnings.
3. A company pays wages to its employees.
4. Taxes must be paid on those wages.

See, plain as day, that's double taxation. That's not fair, is it?

I'm happily waiting for George W. to continue with his fine agenda, because as far as I can tell, now that estate taxes are phased out, and dividend taxes are removed, income tax is next to go!
posted 9:40 PM | link |