Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Joe the Millionaire

The stupidity of McCain's "Joe the Plumber" dominated campaign - and the people who fall for it - is surreal.

Under Obama's plan, the taxes are raised for people with $250k AGI (adjusted gross income).

For the small business owner to pay him- or herself $250k in salary, the small business must bring at least as much in profit - assuming no reinvestment in the business growth, and no other share- or bondholders.

At a very conservative P/E of 10, this means that the business would be worth $2.5M.

With $2.5M in assets, that would make Joe the Plumber a multimillionaire - exactly the constituency to which Republican party caters. Well, that and of course the stupid people who take McCain's claims at the face value...

1 comment:

BadTux said...

And note that Obama isn't touching the corporate tax rate (which is on NET income) for a corporation making $250K/year net profit. Obama is only touching the corporate tax rate for corporations making over $335K/year net profit -- to bring it *up* to the same tax rate as a corporation making $250K/year net profit. Yep, Dear Leader's last tax cut gave a tax break to corporations netting millions of dollars per year, but no tax break to small businesses! Talk about "No MIllionaire Left Behind"...

Here's our *current* nutty corporate tax rates. Obama is going to raise everything to an even 39% for everybody netting over $335K/year net profit (that's profit after expenses, of which Joe's salary would be an expense), so that big business no longer gets a tax advantage over smaller businesses:

Corporate Tax Rate
Rate Taxable Income
15% $0-50,000
25% 50,001-75,000
34% 75,001-100,000
39% 100,001-335,000
34% 335,001-10,000,000
35% 10,000,001-15,000,000
38% 15,000,001-18,333,333
35% Over 18,333,333