House Republicans said they plan to schedule a vote on extending the Bush tax cuts before August.
Eric Cantor
In a legislative agenda released Friday by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., he wrote, “Before we leave for August, I expect to schedule a vote on legislation preventing the largest tax increase in history,” according to Reuters.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said last Wednesday in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, that she wants to schedule a vote on extending the tax cuts for those who earn less than $1 million and use the extra tax revenue from those earning over $1 million to pay down the deficit.
“Without further delay, the Majority Leadership should schedule a vote on extension of the middle income tax cuts, as early as next week, to increase certainty for millions of American taxpayers and for the economy,” she wrote. “We must ask the very wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share. Democrats believe that tax cuts for those earning over a million dollars a year should expire and that we should use the resulting revenues to pay down the deficit… It is unacceptable to hold tax cuts for the middle class hostage to extending multi-billion dollar tax breaks for millionaires, Big Oil, special interests, and corporations that ship jobs overseas.”
The Obama administration position is that the Bush-era tax rates should only be extended for those who earn $250,000 a year or less.
Congress is not expected to settle the matter until after the November election, during a lame-duck session. But there have increasingly been calls for them to settle the fate of the expiring tax cuts in time to provide more certainty for next year. IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman and other IRS officials have urged Congress to decide on the tax rates early enough to avoid a delay in the forms and schedules for next tax season.
3 Comments
To pbwmiller:
A Willie Sutton, the infamous bank robber said, when asked why he robbed banks, "because that's where the money is."
The poor have no money with which to pay more taxes, the middle class will be made poor by taxing them more. So it leaves only those left to pay additional taxes, "because that's where the mone is."
Posted by: tego@verizon.net | June 4, 2012 1:41 PM
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Memo to Ms. Pelosi and others in Congress -- imposing a tax on a selected portion of the population is not "asking" for their support, it is confiscating their wealth because they are a minority. If you want to ask the wealthy to pay more tax, put an extra blank at the bottom of the 1040 where they can write in how much more they would like to pay in response to your request.
Over and over again, some in Congress are losing sight of the fact that a tax is levied against a population, and should not be targeted at special sub-populations who are doing things they don't like. For example, it's possible the so-called "rich" (not "high achieving models of success") are targeted out of envy or for political gain. We've also seen a senator propose a "tax" on people who choose to give up their citizenship to avoid taxation; that's clearly targeting someone for what they're doing what the senator doesn't like. Yet another is the proposal from the minority in the House to finance lower rates on student loans by higher taxes on successful professionals, including CPAs, who have obeyed the law and created Sub S organizations. Why not impose a higher tax on members of Congress? Makes just as much sense.
Civics 101 lesson for Congress: taxes are for raising revenues with fairness to finance expenditures and for accomplishing broad fiscal policies. They are not suitable for attacking people you don't like or for the purpose of winning support from voters who also don't like those people. Next thing you know, they'll want to tax those who live in a state that has great weather.
I suppose this qualifies as a rant, but I suspect I am not alone.
Posted by: pbwmiller | May 30, 2012 7:09 PM
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Earlier would be much better than later. The last time tax law changes were made late in the year, tax practitioners could not start the mandatory electronic filing until mid-February because forms were not ready. On top of that the due date of returns were not extended to take into account the delay in tax forms. All in all, it made for frustrated clients and practitioners.
Posted by: debkalakis | May 30, 2012 2:20 PM
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