Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The Walker Budget Is Already Working! Part CVIII

The WMC recently celebrated their newly bought legislature and governor and how well their new purchases were working for them. Because, thanks to Walker's budget, the rich get richer and the poor get really, really screwed over:
Slipped into Gov. Scott Walker's 2011-2013 budget at the last moment, the domestic production tax credit will cost the state $360 million in revenue over the next four years and some $130 million each year thereafter, according to the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. Critics warn the impact could be even greater, a key point in a state still struggling with budget shortfalls.

The credit applies to profits derived from manufacturing or agriculture and is available both to corporations and shareholders of limited liability companies, S corporations or others who report business income on their individual tax returns.

As a result, top bracket taxpayers could see their state income tax rate fall from 7.75 percent to less than zero by 2016, when the credit fully kicks in. That's because any unused credits can be counted against other income, like stock dividends, and carried over for up to 15 years.

"It's a total giveaway to the wealthy," says Jack Norman, president of the Institute for Wisconsin's Future, a Glendale-based watchdog group. "You've got a guy working at the factory making $35,000, paying his share of taxes. Meanwhile, the guy who owns the factory won't pay any state tax and he can also shelter the income of his wife."
And as we all know, these huge tax cuts for the "job creators" has created no jobs. In fact, we've lost tens of thousands of jobs since Walker's budget has kicked in.

But there are some Wisconsinites that love the budget with all their wallets:
As an example, Harris points to U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, whose family owns the PACUR manufacturing company in Oshkosh. Johnson paid $645,000 in state income taxes on income of $9.5 million from 1997 to 2008, according to campaign finance reports. Under the production credit, Johnson would have seen his state income taxes eliminated — with enough left over to shelter some of his investment income.
Nice to see Walker takes care of his wealthy buddies, isn't it?

Read the whole article, then get pissed off, then get your butt to your local town hall or city hall and vote Walker out!

2 comments:

  1. Put another way: Minimally, for the state to break even, each of the factories in the example provided would have to create 17 full-time jobs at $35k per employee--per year.

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  2. Too bad the way to make profits is to CUT WAGES and REDUCE BENEFITS, so that $35K should be less and less over the years...

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