Keeping you up-to-date with the #Occupy movement.

Posts tagged taxes

Occupy Roundup: Feb. 18-22 – Finance/Banking Edition

Posted at 4:14 , February 22 2012

  • Wall Street has begun to speak for higher taxes on the rich. The article points out part of the catch (of course there’s a catch) – that it’s probably at least an attempt to avoid any further regulation. So this is a good first step! But there needs to be many more steps past this.
  • Occupy Milwuakee is pushing for a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions. In a largely minority community (which has apparently been hit the hardest by both the recession and the foreclosures), this is a great push – hopefully it goes through.
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[Op-Ed] GOP Candidates’ “Weird Obsession” With Taxing the Poor

Posted at 2:32 , January 11 2012

Here’s a fresh quote from the latest non-Romney front-runner in the GOP presidential race. “This dividing of America [between] 99-1,” Rick Santorum said this morning in New Hampshire, “It’s anybody that makes money and pays taxes and everybody who doesn’t. That’s the 99-1.”

Normally we would start by telling you who wrote this and where it came from, but let that above quote sink in. I know it’s from Rick Santorum, who’s particularly notorious for shooting from the lip, but let it roll around in your head nonetheless.

GOP primary candidates have been howling about the so-called “47%”, the number of households they estimate do not pay income tax due to their salaries being so low that credits and deductions outweighed the amount they owed. Now, normally you can stop right there. Anyone who’s ever filed a 1040 knows that the income-to-deduction ratio has to be disturbingly low to get a pass on income taxes. Therefore, most of the households involved are poor. That’s why they’re exempt. It’s an act of mercy for those struggling to get by on meager wages. If that number has risen to 47% or higher, we already have a pandemic in America.

But the nasty label of the “47%” is still somehow persisting through the Republican primary, and Derek Thompson of the Atlantic is willing to tackle it head on.

Continue reading [Op-Ed] GOP Candidates’ “Weird Obsession” With Taxing the Poor

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Cuomo Will Raise Taxes On New York’s Rich

Posted at 6:54 , December 6 2011

Well, whaddya know! It’s almost like all this protesting stuff is actually working!

After facing repeated protests over his resistance to raising taxes on wealthy New Yorkers, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo relented on Tuesday, striking a deal with legislators that will boost state revenues by $1.9 billion while simultaneously dropping the middle class tax rate to the lowest it has been in 58 years.

New York citizens earning $20,000 per year or more are currently taxed at a rate of 6.85 percent, as are married couples earning more than $40,000 per year. The new tax brackets would drop tax rates for the lowest incomes to 6.45 percent, while increasing the rates for higher earners. Couples with incomes between $150,000 and $300,000 will pay 6.65 percent; households that earn $300,000 to $2 million will pay 6.85 percent; and incomes over $2 million will be taxed at 8.82 percent, the Times noted.

The change represents the lowest middle class tax rate New Yorkers have seen in 58 years, Cuomo said in a prepared statement.

The arrangement represents a significant turn for the governor, who had adamantly opposed raising taxes on his wealthiest constituents. [...] It also flew in the face of public opinion: not only do most New York voters support keeping the tax, a huge majority of Americans and even a majority of Republicans support higher taxes for top earners.”

Full article available here, from Raw Story.

This is absolutely huge, and between this and the state amendments to revoke corporate personhood, everyone involved with OWS should be patting themselves on the back right now.

(But not too much. The fight’s not over yet! —ed.)

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