The administration is committed to extending the Bush tax cuts for 98 percent of the country while raising taxes on the top 2 percent of households, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said in a speech yesterday. Republicans are using a collateral damage argument against the plan, arguing that the administration might be aiming for the wealthy, but it's going to hit a lot of small businesses, as well. True?
Howard Gleckman from the Tax Policy Center finds that of the 36 million taxpayers who report income from Schedule C, E, or F (that is, as sole proprietors, members of an S corporation, or on a farm), "only 900,000, or 2.5 percent, would pay higher rates if the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire for those in the top brackets." Two and a half percent. If those projections are right, it would mean that the Bush tax cuts would affect the same share of small businesses as it would American households. An interesting thought.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/08/why-higher-taxes-wouldnt-kill-small-business/60973/