asv108's Journal: Bush Small Business Tax FUD

In the last debate, President Bush talked about Kerry's plan to repeal the Bush tax cuts for the top 1%. Bush called this a small business tax cut and declared that it would force small businesses to freeze hiring or even lay off people. This is simply not true.

From what I understand, about half of the top 1% are small business owners, many of them have S corporations. An S corporation gives small business owners the advantages of a corporate charter while taxing the businesses' profits as personal income. The key word here is profits.

Anyone who took a basic accounting course will understand that hiring a new person is an expense. When a small business or any business decides to hire someone, that expense is accounted for before the federal, state, and local governments attempt to tax the company directly.

Increasing or Decreasing personal income tax will have no direct effect on small business hiring but it can have an affect on after tax personal spending. In the case of small business owners, they will simply purchase whatever items they need through the business to reduce their tax burden regardless of what the current rate may be.

Raising or lowering personal income tax on the top 1% will have no effect on small business hiring and very little effect on small business spending.

What's the definition of small business?

[turg]

If someone's in the top 1%, I wouldn't consider their business to be a small business. That is, their personal income is greater than the total revenue of what I would consider a small business.

Re:What's the definition of small business?

[asv108]

Well the top 1%, and this is a major guesstimate, makes $200,000+/year. A small business is not definied by profitability. Size and revenue tend to be the defining characteristic according to this table [sba.gov]. So in many cases as long as you have less than 500 employees you qualify as a small business.

The main thing, in the case of my JE is whether or not your registered as an S corp.