Short Answer: When it's a Millionaire Tax Rate on Capital Gains.
If the GOP gets their way, the Millionaires will only be given more Charity "Public Assistance" ... and NOT a dime more in Taxes.
Newt Grinrich has proposed a 0% Tax plan for "investment income" -- because the Corporate Raiders of the world, have been paying too dang much ... for too dang long ... or so their story goes ...
The poor babies!
Newt Gingrich’s big, bad ideas
by Ezra Klein, WashingtonPost -- Jan 24, 2012
[...]
Gingrich’s plan would permanently extend the George W. Bush tax cuts. But it would also create a parallel tax system that anyone could opt into. This system would impose a 15 percent flat tax. Capital gains, dividends and interest income would be tax-free (so Mitt Romney would, in theory, pay a tax rate near zero). The corporate tax rate would be cut from 35 percent to 12.5 percent.
[...]
And Newt's plan would lower that Capital Gains tax all the way down to near 0% and he would then even name that Zero tax after his good friend Millionaire Mitt. Why not call it the Greenrich Tax, Newt -- wouldn't that be more -- uummh, Grandiose?
Republican primary debate -- January 23, 2012 -- Tampa, Fla.
WashingtonPost -- Issues and transcript
[...]
Mitt Romney: [...] And that's why I put forward a plan to eliminate the tax on savings for middle income Americans. Anyone making under $200,000 a year, I would eliminate the tax on interest, dividends and capital gains. People need help to be able to save their money.
[...]
Newt Gingrich: [...] The biggest thing I think will be -- and I think you indicated the other day that you pay something like a 15 percent marginal rate. My position is not to attack him for paying a 15 percent marginal rate. I have in my tax proposal an alternative flat tax on the Hong Kong model, where you get to choose what you want, and our rate's 15 percent. So I'm prepared to describe my 15 percent flat tax as the Mitt Romney flat tax. I'd like to bring everybody else down to Mitt's rate, not try to bring him up to some other rate.
Mitt Romney: Mr. Speaker, is the tax on capital gains also 15 percent or is it zero?
Newt Gingrich: Zero.
Mitt Romney: Well, under that -- under that plan, I'd have paid no taxes in the last two years.
[...]
Romney seems to like the idea, too -- the lower the better in his handbook. Afterall Corporate Raiding is hard work. What with keeping track of all those fire-sale assets and pink-slips and all ...
So America, are you ready for the "Mitt Romney Flat Tax" for fat cats, at the stunningly low, low rate of Zero percent?
You can bet the 1 Percenters are ... So, don't fall asleep at the switch on this one.
There IS another option for America getting a fair share of those Millionaire windfalls -- it's call the Warren Buffet Fair Tax. And it makes a lot of sense, a lot of common sense.
President Obama did take a stand on the Buffet Tax, in the State of the Union speech last week:
State of the Union: Obama rejoins tax debate with Buffett rule
by Russell Allyn, LA Progressive Examiner -- January 24, 2012
[...]
President Obama had a rejoinder to these Republican proposals in his State of the Union Address this evening:
[...]
Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 per cent in taxes. . . . [I]f you’re earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn’t get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 per cent of American families, your taxes shouldn’t go up. You’re the ones struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages. You’re the ones who need relief.
Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.
In any event, if the House Republicans can't be convinced to make Millionaires, like Mint and Greenrich pay their fair share (not likely) -- well laws already enacted, just might do it for them, anyways.
The days of the 15 percent tax rate are numbered
by Donald Marron, Guest blogger, csmonitor.com -- Jan 25, 2012
[...]
On January 1, 2013, capital gains taxes are scheduled to go up sharply.
[...]
Put it all together, and the top tax rate on capital gains is scheduled to increase from 15% today to 25% on January 1. That’s a big jump. If taxpayers really believe this will happen, expect a torrent of asset selling in November and December as wealthy taxpayers take final advantage of the lower rate.
No wonder Newt-Romney are peddling their Mitt Romney Flat Tax so eagerly -- there's real money on the table THEY will have to ante up, if one of them can't figure out a way, to match the President's populist bet on the Buffet Tax.
If the GOP is not up to the challenge of winning, then they will have to divest stacks and stacks of those Million dollar capital chips -- and WHAT 1%-er wants to do THAT -- have to pay the ordinary Tax Rates, you know like those sweaty working people do? ... You know, like Warren Buffet's secretary does ...
Perhaps the GOP Downsizing-enablers should try to read a few polls to see just which side of that Revenue-burden-sharing, economic divide the vast majority of American people are on
-- the Flat 0% Mitt Tax, or the Fair 30% Warren Tax?
Center for American Progress
[...]
Many recent polls bear this out. In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in November, for example, 76 percent agreed and 60 percent strongly agreed that:
“The current economic structure of the country is out of balance and favors a very small proportion of the rich over the rest of the country. America needs to reduce the power of major banks and corporations and demand greater accountability and transparency. The government should not provide financial aid to corporations and should not provide tax breaks to the rich.”
Only 12% disagreed with that statement.
Ooops, there goes another "winning" policy of the GOP-Norquist story-tellers.
If only they would bother to ask the American people first what we might want to see for OUR Country -- then they might be able to buy a clue!
Afterall Populism is about strengthening in OUR Opportunity-for-ALL America. ... And NOT about divesting that Opportunity and outsourcing it.
This is what the next election should be about: Who's looking out for you, 99-ers?
Hint: It's not the flat taxers for Millionaires bunch.