Millionaires to Obama: Tax us

For months we have seen anti-tax activists who are calling on legislators to extend all of the Bush tax cuts. However, a group of wealthy taxpayers have emerged that are actually asking to be taxed. More than 40 of the wealthiest people in the U.S. are asking the government to raise their taxes; saying they have more than they can ever need, so why not spread it around?

Yahoo News reports

More than 40 of the nation's millionaires have joined Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength to ask President Obama to discontinue the tax breaks established for them during the Bush administration, as Salon reports.

"For the fiscal health of our nation and the well-being of our fellow citizens, we ask that you allow tax cuts on incomes over $1,000,000 to expire at the end of this year as scheduled," their website states. "We make this request as loyal citizens who now or in the past earned an income of $1,000,000 per year or more."

The group includes many big-time Democratic donors such as Gail Furman, trial lawyer Guy Saperstein and Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's ice cream (pictured). The list remains open to millionaires who want to sign on.

Read more here

Who Would Obama Tax Increases Hit?

From the Wall Street Journal:

Some conservatives and moderate Democrats say that letting the Bush Administrations tax cuts expire only for top earners, as President Obama has proposed, would actually hurt small business.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R. Ariz.) said the increased tax rates that would result would “clobber small businesses.”

“Small businesses generated roughly 64 percent of net new jobs in the past 15 years,” he wrote in response to a Washington Post editorial. “Of the almost 120 million private-sector workers in the United States, slightly more than half work for small businesses. So if we’re trying to promote economic policies that create jobs, why raise taxes on the job creators?”

Democrats counter that the taxes would mainly hit wealthy–a group voters typically are much happier to tax than small business. They point out that taxes would rise only for those households earning $250,000 or more.

So who would be hurt? Small businesses or rich people?

The Tax Policy Center, a venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, just released an analysis of IRS figures showing how many of those top earners–whose rate would jump to 39.6%–also are small-business owners.