Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (33867)	3/10/2009 9:04:02 AM
From: Peter Dierks	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

The Charity Revolt Liberals oppose a tax hike on rich donors MARCH 10, 2009 Among those shocked by President Obama's 2010 budget, the most surprising are the true-blue liberals who run most of America's nonprofits, universities and charities. How dare he limit tax deductions for charitable giving! They're afraid they'll get fewer donations, but they should be more concerned that Mr. Obama's policies will shove them aside in favor of the New Charity State. What did these nonprofit liberals expect, anyway? Mr. Obama is proposing a vast expansion of the entitlement state, and he has to find some way to pay for it. So logically enough, one of his ideas for funding public welfare is to reduce the tax benefit for private charity. His budget proposes to raise the top personal income tax rate to 39.6% in 2011 from 35%, and the 33% rate to 36% while reducing the tax benefit from itemized deductions for the top two brackets to 28% from 35% and 33%, respectively. The White House estimates the deduction reduction will yield $318 billion in revenue over 10 years. From the Ivy League to the United Jewish Appeal, petitions and manifestos are in the works. The Independent Sector, otherwise eager to praise the Obama budget, worries the tax change "could be a disincentive to some donors." According to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, total itemized contributions from the highest income households would have dropped 4.8% -- or $3.87 billion -- in 2006 if the Obama policy had been in place. That year, Americans gave $186.6 billion to charity, more than 40% from those in the highest tax bracket. A back of the envelope calculation by the Tax Policy Center, a left-of-center think tank, estimates the Obama plan will reduce annual giving by 2%, or some $9 billion. In defense, White House budget chief Peter Orszag wrote on his blog: "If you're a teacher making $50,000 a year and decide to donate $1,000 to the Red Cross or United Way, you enjoy a tax break of $150. If you are Warren Buffet or Bill Gates and you make that same donation, you get a $350 deduction -- more than twice the break as the teacher." This Administration wants to turn even philanthropy into a class issue. Mr. Orszag revealed the real agenda at work when he pointed out that the money taken from the "rich" would be used to fund such Obama state-run charities as universal health care. The argument is that any potential declines in private gifts, whether to universities or foundations, will be balanced by increases in government grants paid with higher taxes -- redistribution by another means. This is how Europe's welfare state works: Taxes are so high that private citizens have come to believe it is only the state's duty to support cultural institutions and public welfare. The ambit for private giving shrinks. America has always operated on a different philosophy, going back to Tocqueville's discovery of thousands of private associations that sustained communities without a commanding state. We doubt that a tax benefit is what drives most giving even today. The exception may be the confiscatory death tax that drives many of the superrich to form foundations to avoid the tax. But we suspect that without the death tax the wealthy would give even more of their income away. Americans of all income levels have long given generously, notably in the 1980s as income tax rates fell and the economy boomed. Over the last five decades, American giving overall has hardly deviated from 2% of personal income, according to the Tax Foundation. In an ideal world, the U.S. would eliminate most tax deductions, including the one for charity, in return for a simpler, flatter tax that would help create more wealth to give away. With his many new income-limited tax credits and deduction phase-outs, however, Mr. Obama is sprinting in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, the White House may have underestimated the power of the liberal nonprofit lobby. The charity deduction cut is the only one of the President's many tax increases that Democrats on Capitol Hill have publicly criticized. Politics hath no fury like a rich liberal scorned. online.wsj.com

To: TimF who wrote (33867)	3/10/2009 2:39:07 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Mr. Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all. It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?” Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare. “There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” nytimes.com

To: TimF who wrote (33867)	3/10/2009 2:41:16 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

Its funny how liberals think the money belongs to the government and anyone who doesn't want to fork over more and more of it is at best selfish and cheap and at worst some sort of criminal. If you're a member of a club or gym, you're expected to pay dues...are you not? When you are a member of a country, you also are expected to pay dues. The better the country the higher the dues. Dues in this country are progressive.....those who can afford more pay more. This is far from an unreasonable arrangement. After all, in this country, the rich get many benefits for their 'dues'.