erianaiel wrote:Also, the argument made by mostly republican politicians is that increasing the taxes on the multi millionaires must not be done because -they- are creating jobs.
That is my point: That argument makes no sense whatsoever, because the
personal income tax rate of wealthy individuals has no connection whatsoever to job creation by corporations.
However, the link posted above doesn't stop there, but begins a Marxist rant against corporations and rich people generally, tying together concepts that are completely unrelated like personal income tax, personal net worth, and corporate employment.
The reality is, all of those billionaires, who are wealthy by virtue of their sizable ownership of large companies, do not
personally employ those people. They don't pay for those people out of their pocket, or deduct them as expenses on their personal tax return.
Changing the personal income tax rate of a corporate officer will have NO effect whatsoever on how many people that company hires. And, except for the small minority of billionaires who make their money from active trading, personal income tax rates won't affect their net worth, which is tied to the value of the company, not the amount of personal income taxes they pay.
So yes, I agree with the general conclusion that taxing wealthy individuals will not affect job creation, but not with the reasoning posted.
erianaiel wrote:Except that the same graphs show that companies are making record profits and record laying offs of workers at the same time.
You seem to be suggesting that the more profit a company makes, the more people it should be hiring.
That is false.
People cost money. Companies hire people only if those people can make the company more profit. If I have 10 employees and make $1 million in profit in year 1, and then in year 2 I make $1.5 million profit due to favorable market conditions, I don't automatically hire 5 more people. I may hire more if I think they can make me more money, or I may hire less if I think the ones I have are unnecessary.
Now, that does not mean that profits and levels of hiring are totally unrelated, because usually when you're making more profit it's because there is more demand for your product or service, and to fill that demand you often require more people to perform the services or make the products. However, there is no perfect correlation, as you suggest.
erianaiel wrote:If all that money they are raking in does not lead to more jobs then it is better to increase taxes and have the government create those jobs.
The way our tax code works, you only pay taxes on investments when there is a sale or exchange of an asset.
So increasing personal income taxes (including the capital gains rate) isn't going to automatically transfer those billionaires' fortunes into the public treasury, because for the most part they are just sitting on all of their holdings.
As for relying on the government to make unneeded jobs, by taking money from rich people who are actually doing something productive, what are you going to do when your tax base evaporates?