"Temporary unemployment tax to expire today after 35 years" July 01, 2011|By Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Virtually every private employer in the United States will get a tax cut today.
It will not affect workers' paychecks. But the expiration of a 35-year-old temporary unemployment tax - about $14 a year per worker - will mean real money for some big companies at a time when President Obama is pushing Congress to raise taxes on some businesses by closing loopholes.
Related:
"While the U.S. economy staggers through one of its slowest recoveries since the Great Depression, American companies are poised to report strong earnings for the second quarter—exposing a dichotomy between corporate performance and the overall health of the economy."
This truly is about the destruction of the middle class. The attack on unions, the shredding of the social safety net, and increased taxes on the rest of us are all part of the plan.
Amid a fierce debate over whether higher taxes should be part of a deal to reduce annual deficits - in exchange for letting the government go further into debt - the small cut in federal unemployment taxes has received little attention on Capitol Hill. Most employers probably do not even know they are getting it, especially those who are being hit with bigger increases in state jobless taxes.
But business groups say every little bit helps, whether you're a small employer struggling to make a payroll or a huge company like Wal-Mart, with more than 1.4 million US workers. That adds up to nearly $20 million a year in savings for Wal-Mart.
And PROFIT!
Some worry that reducing federal unemployment taxes while the jobless rate hovers above 9 percent will add to the system's financial problems. But the tax cut will save businesses nationwide more than $14 billion over the next decade, according to congressional estimates.
And $200 million of it will go to Wal-mart. I wonder what other huge firms will be cashing an unemployment check.
"The death of any tax on jobs, no matter how big or small, is a historic moment and one to be celebrated," said Representative Dave Camp, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. "The fact that it has taken 35 years for this 'temporary' tax to expire clearly illustrates the dangers of higher taxes - once in place, they are unlikely to ever go away."
Okay, on the first point I would normally agree; however, with the poor being decimated in this country and the middle-class being turned into poor I am sick of billions of TAX DOLLARS (yeah, it's OUR MONEY after all) going to CORPORATIONS and WELL-CONNECTED "business" concerns.
And I agree with him on the second point, which is WHY I OPPOSE all the PATRIOT ACT TYRANNY as well as ANY NEW GOVERNMENT PROGRAM because YOU CAN NEVER KILL THEM!
Oh, btw, the MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX being at the TOP of the LIST! They can't even cancel an engine even the Pentagon doesn't want.
The expiring levy was a 0.2 percentage point surtax on the first $7,000 of a worker's wages. Getting rid of it effectively lowers the federal unemployment tax from 0.8 percent to 0.6 percent for most employers. That's a decrease from $56 a worker to $42 a worker each year. The tax is paid by nearly all private employers, who also must pay state unemployment taxes.
Doesn't it look like chump change when you see the billions and trillions Washington tosses around? You don't even get that anymore, 'murkn!
The surtax was first imposed in 1976 to help pay for federal unemployment benefits distributed in the 1970s. The tax was supposed to be temporary, but like a lot of short-term measures in Washington, it endured and was extended at least eight times, under both Republican and Democratic presidents.
Yeah, Obama just robo-signed the Patriot act last month, right?
Okay, on the first point I would normally agree; however, with the poor being decimated in this country and the middle-class being turned into poor I am sick of billions of TAX DOLLARS (yeah, it's OUR MONEY after all) going to CORPORATIONS and WELL-CONNECTED "business" concerns.
And I agree with him on the second point, which is WHY I OPPOSE all the PATRIOT ACT TYRANNY as well as ANY NEW GOVERNMENT PROGRAM because YOU CAN NEVER KILL THEM!
Oh, btw, the MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX being at the TOP of the LIST! They can't even cancel an engine even the Pentagon doesn't want.
The expiring levy was a 0.2 percentage point surtax on the first $7,000 of a worker's wages. Getting rid of it effectively lowers the federal unemployment tax from 0.8 percent to 0.6 percent for most employers. That's a decrease from $56 a worker to $42 a worker each year. The tax is paid by nearly all private employers, who also must pay state unemployment taxes.
Doesn't it look like chump change when you see the billions and trillions Washington tosses around? You don't even get that anymore, 'murkn!
The surtax was first imposed in 1976 to help pay for federal unemployment benefits distributed in the 1970s. The tax was supposed to be temporary, but like a lot of short-term measures in Washington, it endured and was extended at least eight times, under both Republican and Democratic presidents.
Yeah, Obama just robo-signed the Patriot act last month, right?
President George W. Bush proposed extending it in his 2009 budget, and Obama proposed making it permanent in the 2012 budget he released in February. Both presidents said the additional tax was necessary to help sustain federal unemployment trust funds....
Why, what did the government steal that for, the wars or Wall Street?
Why, what did the government steal that for, the wars or Wall Street?
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