Junto Boys

RICH DEMS DON'T NEED GEORGE BUSH TO AVOID PAYING TAXES

The Wall Street Jounral has a great article about how Edwards and Kerry find a way to dodge all those tax cuts aimed at the rich.

In embracing John Edwards, John Kerry has also endorsed his populist "two Americas" rhetoric and has put tax increases at the center of the election campaign. So it's fair to ask the two Democrats: How much of those tax increases will actually hit the super-rich like yourselves, and how much will end up on the backs of upper middle-class wage earners?

For an answer, let's look at what the two Senators have themselves been paying in taxes. It turns out that the Kerrys and Edwards have exploited plenty of tax loopholes over the years. Of course, nobody is obligated to pay more than what the letter of the law requires. But the complex tax code benefits the wealthy, who can afford tax attorneys and complicated schemes to skirt the law. And high marginal rates give them plenty of incentive to do so.

Senator Edwards talks about the need to provide health care for all, but that didn't stop him from using a clever tax dodge to avoid paying $591,000 into the Medicare system. While making his fortune as a trial lawyer in 1995, he formed what is known as a "subchapter S" corporation, with himself as the sole shareholder.

Instead of taking his $26.9 million in earnings directly in the following four years, he paid himself a salary of $360,000 a year and took the rest as corporate dividends. Since salary is subject to 2.9% Medicare tax but dividends aren't, that meant he shielded more than 90% of his income. That's not necessarily illegal, but dodging such a large chunk of employment tax skates perilously close to the line.

It's funny how these guys are always acting so egalitarian about how they don't need Bush's tax cut.  Now I know why.   
 
Rich people can hire the best attorneys to avoid taxes.  Us middle class people have to rely on lower marginal rates.  Democrats have been playing an interesting game with the electorate.   They make middle class people feel envious of the rich all the while collecting middle class money in order to buy votes from the lower class. 
 
These programs that they believe in so whole-heartedly are to be paid for by people who actually work for a living and not them.   I would call that suspicious.