I have written from time to time about the differing taxes plans of Senator McCain and Senator Obama which often leads to comments from the Obama faithful deriding the credibility of The Wall Street Journal and other such things. Well another interesting little table appeared in the Journal yesterday.
Interesting, because using information from an analysis by Deloitte it shows that unless you make over $400,000 your taxes are not going up under either candidates proposals. The only folks that full a lot of pain in the Obama plan are those making over a $1,000,000 annually. If you like you can download a pdf of the full Deloitte report here.
As an entrepreneurial kid of guy of more interest to me is capital gains tax treatment. A year ago I made the statement that I would not vote for anyone that wanted to raise capital gains tax. Perhaps I am not alone as Mr. Obama has changed is position of wanting to raise capital gains tax from 15% to 28%. He currently states that he would raise capital gains and dividend rates to 20% for families earning more than $250,000 ($200,000 for singles), and eliminate all capital gains taxes on start-ups and small businesses to encourage innovation. As an undecided centrist I can live with that.
More broadly, given the current state of economic turmoil I have to halfway agree with Marc Cuban. Talk of tax cuts for anyone is no longer economically viable. But increasing taxes on the uber rich is another story. Taxing the heck out of that dude from Goldman that wants a USG bailout and personally makes about $70,000,000 a year. Now that's interesting. Populist or not, taxing ordinary income above, say $10,000,000 annually, at an 80% tax rate might be a way to reel in excessive corporate executive compensation and provide the fortunate more reason to give back to society voluntarily.