It's a great time to be rich: The next two years will be the best in living memo

[Freeper]

Better Believe It  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Thu Dec-16-10 09:08 PM
Original message
It's a great time to be rich: The next two years will be the best in living memory for the wealthy   Updated at 4:11 PM
   
It's a great time to be rich
If the tax cuts become law, the next two years will be the best in living memory for many wealthy Americans to shield their income and fortunes
By Ben Steverman
Business Week
December 16, 2010

Under legislation approved by the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, and now moving on to the House, savvy wealthy Americans would be able to capitalize on an environment in which their tax rates on income and investments remain at historic lows. Also, new rules would make it possible to pass on fortunes to heirs with less fuss and lower taxes than all but a brief period of the past 80 years. It's a far cry from the 70 percent bite the federal government took out of the largest incomes and estates as recently as 1980.

The good news for the rich starts with income tax rates, which for top income groups would remain 35 percent, a rate enacted by former President George W. Bush in 2003. Except for a period from 1988 to 1992, the top tax rate has never been this low since 1931.

.... taxes on capital gains and dividends can be far more important to the rich than income tax rates. The tax compromise extends a 15 percent top tax rate on long-term capital gains and dividends enacted in 2003, which is the lowest rate since 1933. The top capital-gains rate was 77 percent in 1918 and, since 1921, its highest point was 39.9 percent in 1976 and 1977 — though certain gains could be excluded from taxation.

The number of people who must worry about estate taxes, already tiny, would shrink to less than 0.2 percent of the population, estimates Richard Behrendt, senior estate planner at Robert W. Baird & Co. In 2009, when the exemption was $3.5 million, 14,713 people had fortunes large enough to file taxable estate returns, according to the IRS. Just 4,296 of those people had estates of $5 million or larger. Compare that with the 2.47 million Americans who died in 2008, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Read the full article at:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40701302/ns/business


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Wealth gap becomes chasm at Christmas
Luxury retailers see strong demand as lower-income shoppers hunker down
By John W. Schoen
Senior Producer
MSNBC.com
December 16, 2010

With just a few days left in the holiday shopping season, reports from retailers suggesting strong sales are prompting analysts and investors to declare that “the American consumer is back.”

Make that "some consumers." With unemployment stuck near 10 percent, home prices falling and foreclosures still rising, holiday shopping this year has brought into sharper focus the divide between upper- and lower-income American households.

“It’s very much a tale of two worlds,” said Bernstein Research retail analyst Colin McGranahan. “There’s a big dichotomy between the well-educated, upper-income consumers — what the employment trends looks like, what the wage trends looks like — and the lower-income, less well-educated consumer. It’s a very different picture.”

The split mood among holiday shoppers is heavily tied to their employment outlook: Those at the upper end of the income ladder are feeling much better about their job prospects and income security than those at the bottom.

Read the full article at:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40593905/ns/business-stocks...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x24425

The horror of people being able to keep and do what they want with their own money.
Why are libs so opposed to people keeping what belongs to them in the first place?
 

[Carl]

Their life outlook requires them to believe every dime someone has more then they do was stolen from them.
It is the perfect built in excuse to not have to put forth any effort.

[Opfor6]

Some people don't want to have to do what the Joneses have to do so that they can keep up with the Jones.

It's also easier to damn other people's success than it is to recognizing one's own natural limitations. Life is so unfair.

[Traveshamockery]

These are NOT TAX CUTS.  This is merely a continuation of tax rates ALREADY IN PLACE. 

 

[NHSparky]

Newsflash to DUmmies...this is NOT your money!

I really wish we could go back about 100 years and show the assholes who created the federal income tax what the system would be like today.

Guarantee they would NEVER have ratified the 16th Amendment.

[jukin]

IT will be the EXACT SAME TAX RATE!!

By no means will the rich do as well in the next two years as the government and private unions have done in the last two years. Can you say almost 1.8 trillion dollars going into the hungry maws in stimulus SPENDING.

[AllosaursRus]

Better Believe It  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Thu Dec-16-10 09:08 PM
Original message
It's a great time to be rich: The next two years will be the best in living memory for the wealthy

Say what? Ya mean the next 2 years are goin' to better than the last 7 where tax rates were exactly the same???

How the hell does that work? Damn, I musta missed that class in school where they taught the same thing is better!

WTF??????

[thundley4]

Say what? Ya mean the next 2 years are goin' to better than the last 7 where tax rates were exactly the same???

How the hell does that work? Damn, I musta missed that class in school where they taught the same thing is better!

WTF??????

The DUmmies still believe that there is a tax cut coming.  But then, you were being rhetorical, right?

[jukin]

The next two years can't hep but be better now that Pelosi and her reign of fiscal destruction have been dethroned.

The Pelosi Fiscal destruction tour 2007-2010.
2007 (last Republican passed fiscal budget year) $167 billion deficit.
2008 (first donk passed fiscal budget year) $465 billion deficit. Almost THREE TIMES the last republican budget.
2009 $1,400 billion deficit. 8.5 TIMES the last republican budget.
2010 $1,550 billion deficit 9.3 TIMES the last republican budget.

Hopefully, the donks will not get the huge boondoggle spending bill through and we could possibly make a dent in the budget maw. Either way a good chunk of the deficit in continuing resolutions will still be owned by the democrats.

[thundley4]

The next two years can't hep but be better now that Pelosi and her reign of fiscal destruction have been dethroned.

The Pelosi Fiscal destruction tour 2007-2010.
2007 (last Republican passed fiscal budget year) $167 billion deficit.
2008 (first donk passed fiscal budget year) $465 billion deficit. Almost THREE TIMES the last republican budget.
2009 $1,400 billion deficit. 8.5 TIMES the last republican budget.
2010 $1,550 billion deficit 9.3 TIMES the last republican budget.

Hopefully, the donks will not get the huge boondoggle spending bill through and we could possibly make a dent in the budget maw. Either way a good chunk of the deficit in continuing resolutions will still be owned by the democrats.

And that is why taking the House was so important.

[ColonialMarine0431]

Their life outlook requires them to believe every dime someone has more then they do was stolen from them.
It is the perfect built in excuse to not have to put forth any effort.

H5!

Exactly

At the linked article is another linked article that expresses this exact idea.

Why the Left Really Hates Tax Cuts for the Rich

My hunch is that folks who abhor tax cuts for the rich see the economic pie as a fixed quantity. Your gain is my loss. A tax cut, exemption, credit or deduction for you means nothing for me. It’s a zero sum game, except it isn’t.

The article is so good it desrves it's own thread.

[delilahmused]

The only "cut" is a temporary reduction in social security taxes (a whopping 2%). That's going to help the working poor and middle class more than the rich.

Cindie

[Randy]

We're getting a tax cut? Kewl. Will my pony bring it?

[BlueStateSaint]

We're getting a tax cut? Kewl. Will my pony bring it?

Nah--it'll be the Skittle-shitting unicorn that brings it.  Your pony is out on another assignment.

[GOBUCKS]

Stupid DUmmies don't realize it's ALWAYS a good time to be rich.

[true_blood]

Some more class warfare from the DUmmies.
Just following suit from their lord zero. Another dummy.