President Obama’s 2011 budget proposes a combined $1.9 trillion tax increase for wealthy Americans and large companies over the next few years, a Bloomberg Story reports. Broken down, that includes a $970 billion tax hike for the wealthy and a $400 billion increase for large businesses. The document outlines a plan to return income tax levels for high earners to where they were ten years ago, taxing individuals making $200,000 or more 39.6 percent and families making $250,000 or more 36 percent. The proposal also includes $143.4 billion in new tax cuts for individuals earning less than $200,000, and introduces measures to generate fair tax revenues from U.S. businesses who have tried to dodge taxes through operating internationally.
Taxing big banks alone won’t be enough to rescue a failing system, according to Times (of London) columnist Laurence Kotlikoff. He proposes instead Limited Purpose Banking (LPB), a single-regulator system which remakes banks as mutual fund companies that “don’t borrow short and lend long.” The system wouldn’t shift any failures of banking institutions onto taxpayers, Kotlikoff says.
Also today in taxation news:
Bank of America, Microsoft, Exxon May Face Obama Tax Increases
