Ezra Klein blog: Millionaire’s surtax would hit the top 1 percent of small businesses

[flpoljunkie]

Yet the media continues to let Republicans get away with this lie. Emphasis mine.

Millionaire’s surtax would hit the top 1 percent of small businesses

By Suzy Khimm, Published: November 29

Senate Democrats are pushing a 3.25 percent surtax on millionaires to pay for the extension of the payroll tax cut for all Americans—a proposal that Republicans claim would be a “job-killing tax hike on small businesses,” according to House Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman, Michael Steel.

The millionaire’s tax would indeed affect about 30 to 40 percent of business income that’s reported on individual tax returns, rather than on corporate tax returns. But that income is concentrated among a very small group of small businesses. The tax would only affect about 1 percent of those the Treasury Department classifies as “small business owners.”

Just 2 percent of all business owners who file taxes through individual returns—including sole proprietorships, limited liability corporations, S corporations, and partnerships—have taxable income that’s more than $1 million, according to an August 2011 Treasury report. And just about 1 percent of those Treasury categorizes as “small businesses owners” would be affected by the Democrats’ proposed millionaire’s tax —about 273,000 in total. That number drops even further—to 51,000—if you define “small business owners” as those earning at least 25 percent of income through their firm.

Such findings are in line with independent analyses of small business “millionaires” as well. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center—a partnership between Brookings and the Urban Institute—calculates that 1 percent of those reporting business income via individual returns in 2011 would be subject to the millionaire’s tax, about 340,000 in total.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/millionaires-surtax-would-hit-the-top-1-percent-of-small-businesses/2011/11/29/gIQAO9de9N_blog.html

[zbdent]

1. I believe that, in the early 2000s, there was some flak about how

Wal-Mart or Ford qualified (by George W. Bush's/GOP's calculations), and, for that matter, George W. Bush, qualified as a "small business" ... all to qualify for the "small business tax cuts" pushed by the Republicans ...

[jenmito]

2. The DNC should make another humoroua but true ad, showing quick clips of

all the Repubs. saying we can't raise taxes on the "job creators" and then introduce a "Republican-to-Regular People" Dictionary, showing "Job Creators": Republican for "the top 1%; see also 'the rich.'"

[Nancy Waterman]

3. It needs to be pointed out again and again

that the tax is on income AFTER EXPENSES ARE DEDUCTED.
That is a lot of income for an individual or couple after business expenses are taken out.

[Lint Head]

4. Major corporations are well known to create 'S corporation' to look like a small business.