Bush Claims of Small Business Tax Cuts Exaggerated -52% get $500 or less

[papau]

Bush Claims of Small Business Tax Cuts Exaggerated

On a campaign trip to Michigan yesterday, President Bush echoed one of his familiar claims, saying "I want to remind people about is that the tax relief was geared toward small businesses...When you hear us talking about reducing all taxes on individuals, you really hear also the message that we're reducing taxes on small businesses." This statement is the most recent in a long line of similar assertions - an unscientific Lexis-Nexis search shows, that in just the three years since Bush became President, he and Vice
President Cheney have given at least 150 separate speeches claiming that their tax proposals are specifically geared to helping small business.

But simple statistics show just how misleading these statements are. In talking about his 2001 tax cut, the President specifically promised that there would be "more than 17.4 million small business owners and entrepreneurs who stand to benefit from dropping the top rate from 39.6% to 33%" - the major piece of his proposal.

But according to nonpartisan analyses of IRS and Treasury Department data, just 3.7% of small business owners are subject to these top tax rates - meaning the rest receive almost nothing from the major piece of his plan. In other words, for every small business owner that benefits, there are 15 small business owners that do not. All told, small business owners "would be far more likely to receive no tax reduction whatsoever from the Administration's tax package than to benefit" in any way.

Similarly, in pushing for his second tax cut in 2003, the President said that "small businesses stand to gain a great deal" from his most recent tax cut proposals, because he said it would "give 23 million small business owners an average tax cut of $2,042."

In fact, "nearly four out of every five tax filers (79%) with small business income would receive less than this amount," according to the nonpartisan Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. Additionally, "52% of people with small business returns would get $500 or less." The President produced the $2,042 average figure by deceptively averaging the large tax cuts that would go to a small number of wealthy individuals who have some small business income with the miniscule (if any) tax cuts that would go to millions of more typical small business people.

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[madrchsod]

1. that wouldn`t even

cover the increase in medical costs. i know ,that`s the main reason i got out of my business,couldn`t afford health insurance.