Sigh.
Perhaps I’ll eventually work up the energy to fully fisk the Seattle Times’ predictable, knee-jerk editorial slamming I-1077 as a jobs killer “Proposed state income tax will stymie job creation“, but for the moment, I’d just like to say that… really? We should be taking economic advice from the Times?
As far as tax increases go, I-1077 is relatively minor, only about $1 billion a year net, and falls only those who can most afford it… those top three percent of households who will still benefit from a somewhat less so, but still largely regressive tax structure. In return, we not only get desperately needed new funding for K-12 education and health care, but substantial middle class and small business tax breaks.
In fact, if anything, I-1077 actually improves Washington state’s already enviable business climate. As the Times explains, but does not understand:
The larger break goes to business owners. I-1077 gives every business $4,400 more in credits. A number of very small businesses would be exempt entirely from the business-and-occupations tax. But at companies in a position to create family-wage jobs, a $4,400 credit is not going to do anything.
This $4,400 credit will exempt 80 percent of Washington businesses from the state B&O tax, while lowering taxes on an additional 10%. How many times have we heard that small businesses are the engine of job creation, yet the Times editors dismiss 90 percent of businesses in the state as not being “in a position to create family-wage jobs”…?
How myopic could they get? Are they entirely clueless about how the new economy works? Do they have any idea how many people make their living these days as independent contractors or running mom & pop businesses? Do they understand that “very small businesses” sometimes grow into larger ones if given the opportunity to thrive, and that even a blogger begging for contributions to pay his bills means one less upward tick on the unemployment rolls?
Billions of dollars of extorted tax breaks for Boeing, that the Times can embrace, but a $261 million tax cut distributed to 90 percent of Washington businesses, well… I guess if the Blethens don’t rub elbows with them down at the Rainier Club, they don’t much matter.
I’m no economist, and my own entrepreneurial ventures haven’t made me rich, but hell if I’m gonna take seriously a lecture on job creation from a paper that has spent much of the past decade slashing its own staff.
UPDATE (from Geov)
I don’t post here often, but in conjunction with the Times’ whining that I-1077’s tax breaks don’t go to really big businesses, you know, the ones that matter, my friend Jeff Reifman reports that just yesterday, Microsoft got a doozy:
Struggling to close a $2.8 billion fiscal deficit, the Washington State Legislature ended its recent special session with two huge gifts for Microsoft:
1) It gave Microsoft an effective $100 million annual tax cut by revising the definition of the royalty tax. Under the old law, all of Microsoft’s $20.7 billion annual software licensing sales were taxable in Washington state at .484%. Under the new law, the royalty tax will be apportioned so that only the portion of sales to Washington State customers would be taxable, a tiny fraction of Microsoft’s taxable revenue.
2) It also gave Microsoft amnesty on an estimated $1.25 billion in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties that the company has avoided paying since 1997 by reporting this revenue from a small Reno, Nevada office. The state’s Department of Revenue has ignored this practice and refused to address precedents that call the legality of Microsoft’s accounting into question.
Most of the legislation was led by Chair of the Finance committee Rep. Ross Hunter, a 17 year veteran former employee of Microsoft.
Got that? While Olympia struggles to close a $2.8 billion shortfall, mostly by slashing services, it plants a big wet kiss on Microsoft, and it’s such business-as-usual the Times can’t be bothered mentioning it; but when citizens try to do the legislature’s job for it by offering a package that would give tax breaks to the majority of Washingtonians, the Times editorial board shrieks in horror.
Just in case you wondered where you stood.
Oh, and while I’m here: has anyone else noticed that Tim Eyman, who’s made a good living for the last decade exploiting middle class resentment over Washington’s regressive tax structure, is stridently opposing a measure that does far more to bring tax relief to his voting constituency than anything he’s ever done? Just in case you ever wondered whose side he’s on. (Hint: his own, and Mike Dunmire’s.)
Conservatives CREATING jobs?
THAT’s a fucking laugh…
You know it has been 30 years now that we have been hearing this old saw about tax cuts and tax increases (regardless of how they are actually applied) being the most determinate factor in job creation and economic growth.
Despite the previous 8 years of disastrous economic results, this crap is still dished out.
The reflexive response from the ST to the proposal of adapting our tax policy to reduce the state’s financial risk is predictable, but it is also nauseatingly stupid.
rich people should just die since there’s no estate tax if you die in 2010. op-ed this now, times.
@3: Yes. That raises some interesting estate planning questions. The reported bump in health care costs in the 4th quarter of last year was undoubtedly due to heroic medical procedures to keep dottering old coupon clippers alive for a few more months, and I’ve even heard some millionaire deaths went unreported in ’09 to get the heirs ‘over the finish line’ into the nirvana of 2010.
Be on the lookout for a big increase in accidental deaths amongst the upper class right around Christmas.
Goldy queries, “Um… and how many jobs has the Seattle Times created with the tax break they recently lobbied for and received?”
That’s a rhetorical question, right? :)
@3 notaboomer 04/24/2010 at 12:42,
Stands to reason that by dying the avoidance of taxes would supercharge the economy like never before.
snark.
If Grandma is among the few who’s estates is even affected by the federal income tax, perhaps she should take a food tester with her to Christmas dinner at the relative’s homes.
Grandma: “But I thought you were a big beliver in ‘right to live’, and all that….”
Grandson: “Not this year, Grandma” (approaches grandma in her wheelchair with a big pillow aimed at her face).
remember it’s “Jobs created or Saved”…
It’s all how you look at it.
So I would estimate that based on other numbers, the Seattle Times most likely saved at least 1000 Jobs
I’m sure you can’t disagree :-)
I agree Goldy, but ultimately, who the heck actually reads these editorials and then changes their opinion these days?
The ST editorial and the Blethens reminds me of the old saying about masturbation: Yes, you feel good doing it, but, in the end, you’re still all alone.
I wonder if Frank Blethen spent $7,000 of his newspaper tax rebate to stimulate the economy and create jobs by buying one of these for his office? They’re made entirely in the U.S.A., according to the manufacturer. Hey, I’m not saying (or even implying) he did, I’m just asking a question. You don’t get information if you don’t ask questions. I’m just looking for information about what he did with the newspaper tax rebate the legislature gave him.
http://www.wickedrealdoll.com/.....ica_13.jpg
Bunch of ballless, useless, turds.
Ge over it Goldy; they won’t hire you. Apply elsewhere.
That’s a very good B&O tax planning strategy that Microsoft has. Run all their royalty income through Microsoft Licensing, G.P., a Nevada entity, instead of Microsoft Corp. I know for a fact that Microsoft employs a full time tax lobbyist in D.C., and I’m sure they have one based in Olympia as well.
@12 Get it over dumbass. Goldy already has a media job.
@10 Roger Rabbit! How about a little NSFW when you put up a link like that??? I suppose I should have known from the url, but I wasn’t really paying close attention.
NSFW? Oh … “not suitable for women” … hmmm … given the frequent use of sexually explicit language on this blog I’m surprised that’s necessary.
And, of course, as a feral rabbit I don’t have human inhibitions. I’m accustomed to running around a public park in the nude, and fucking female rabbits in front of dozens of onlookers.
Maybe a solution is for you to consider having species-change surgery to turn yourself into a rabbit?
@15 (continued) Well, I guess I should apologize. So, er, um, ah … I’m sorry. Gosh, that’s hard to do. I was beginning to wonder if that comment was ever going to get any action. I was waiting for the outraged mother of a troll to come flying out of the rafters at me.
I don’t doubt for a minute that corporate money gets spent on stuff like that. We already know RNC money is.
Roger, NSFW is not safe for work.
@19 Oh. Well, back when I was a young bunny, we all were taught to write in plain English, and I’m not real hip on this newspeak stuff.
Drill Baby Drill
Now that oil drilling technology is completely safe, we should open up all the coastal and seabed areas that stupid environmentalists closed off … er …
“An oil well at the site of a drilling platform that exploded and sank is spewing up to 1,000 barrels of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico, 50 miles from Louisiana’s coast, a Coast Guard commander said today.
“Rear Adm. Mary Landry said … the well is leaking from the sea bed, 5,000 feet below the gulf’s surface. … It was unclear how the leak in the well would be plugged.
“Before the discovery of the leak … cleanup had focused on a ‘sheen’ of petroleum on the water’s surface that the Coast Guard said has grown from one mile by eight miles to 20 miles by 20 miles over the past several days. The edge of that sheen is now roughly 40 miles from Louisiana’s marshy coastline … containment and cleanup … was suspended today because of high winds, rain and eight- to 10-foot waves ….”
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/.....e/19452975
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Yeah, well, like, there’s a reason we don’t allow drilling near environmentally sensitive areas, ya know?
@21
Lovely! Yeah, I thought the cries about how there wasn’t going to be a leak and everything was just fine were a bit premature.
21 and 22
Obama is wrong to advocate for offshore drilling. I understand his political considerations. But, he is just plain wrong on this one.
re 9: But at least you are with someone who loves and understands you.
Q: How can you tell if a product is a piece of crap?
A: It says “Microsoft” on the package.
Goldy, you are really short sighted.
I’ll bet you loved having Boeing move hq…, maybe you’d love MSFT moving too. You really don’t have a clue, only a knee jerk reaction.
While i hate corporate socialism, doing things to keep major businesses in town is just a fact of life. so i’ll swallow my principles in exchange for my home keeping its value.
Tax breaks never make jobs any more than they drive jobs away, not in serious numbers, despite what both parties say. If you listen to the lunatics, Seattle is the most taxed place on earth, with the worst over burdening regulation ever! Uh huh. Yet within this communist anti-business atmosphere, Startbucks went from one tiny mom & pop business to a 30,000 store global empire. Amazon went from a tiny online book seller to the largest retailer on the internet. IF someone wants to start a business, and make it into a global powerhouse, you can do it here as well as anywhere.
Note that Amazon and Starbucks didn’t move to more tax friendly Wyoming or Mississippi. Wonder why? Maybe it’s hard to attract high level project managers and computer programmers (like me) in ‘tax friendly’ nutball small towns that are “proud” of their KKK rallies and want to stop (insert group here) from destroying our (meth addicted single wide trailer) way of life. Because those (insert group here) folks they don’t like are the folks these global powerhouse companies NEED to run them…folks with fancy edu-kation learnin degrees and skills.
@26 Fuck this race to the bottom in which businesses play states off each other to extort money from taxpayers in exchange for low-wage jobs. Asking for incentives should be a felony, and executives who accept tax breaks or subsidies should be in prison.
28, ok, lets go after your hero Gary Locke and all the dims who jammed 2 stadiums onto the taxpayers….
do they go to prison?
how about the left/center seattle pol’s who every 10 yrs beg for money for some sports team at Key Arena (oops, i mean what used to be a Seattle Center)
I guess you don’t object when its your boys jamming all the taxpayers…
@29 This lefty thinks pro sports teams’ going after public money is a disgusting racket and that the WA State Supreme Court was a whore to allow it. The Sea Hawk stadium was approved by a majority vote of people statewide, so in this case the public has enthusiastically cooperated in its own fleecing.
glad tom recognizes stadium corruption; half the reason the jocks get $20mm contracts is cuz we all subsidize the costs of running the team. What a stupid use of money. Even spending on Acorn is better than overpaying some utility infielder.
Hmmm
Seems like boilerplate talking points by the Times.
Let me make a pro-business counterpoint. An income tax would actually amount to a tax cut for many small businesses because the state’s B&O tax is based on grosss reciepts not profit. A business can lose money in this state and still owe taxes under the current system.
Not up on your newspeak? Just call the link “Double plus Un Good.” That will make it all clear.
Hi, the link to Jeff Reifman’s post is actually here.
http://microsofttaxdodge.com/