Its been awhile since my last post in May. I wanted to enjoy the summer months with the family. There is so much to discuss but I wanted to touch upon the issue of taxes.
As everyone in the US knows, unless Congress acts, the lower tax brackets and rates on investment income will go up starting on January 1, 2011. What that means is your withholdings will go up in your first paycheck of the year. Now Congress decided to address this issue after the elections. This election cycle seems to be just as charged as the 2008 one. Normally, I don't get fired up about taxes until April 15th but the ire is raising again.
Tax debate always lands on the rich vs. the poor arguments. Wealth redistribution and how the rich soaks the poor always come up. I have grown tired of these arguments. Why do we demonize successful people in our country? The tax code is currently set up on a progressive scale. You make more, you pay more. A large majority of tax revenues are paid by the richest Americans. There is a large majority of Americans who pay zilch, zero, nada. I believe that one underlying issue that gets people like me upset is that our government has shown that they aren't good stewards of our tax dollars. The spending decisions have become free for alls and the issue of earmarks was a hot potato for awhile.
There have been many proposals to overhaul our tax code but no consensus has been reached. If they do come up with a more simplified version, the underlying issue remains. Over the last several years, many Americans took necessary actions to get their financial houses in order, let's have our government do the same. Next post, we'll talk about this silly China yuan issue.
