It is a controversial idea, the small business tax. For whatever reason, small business owners find it too high even though it is only at thirty percent in most cases – and that’s before all of the tax breaks are figured in. It is a rare business indeed whose accountants cannot find some bit of municipal, county, state, or federal tax policy that could be exploited. For example, many businesses are able to claim their losses against their taxes. Then there are several tax credits that may be applied which also decrease the tax burden. And there are special provisions of all kinds for veterans, women and minorities. And not to mention the fact that many “cash-and-carry” businesses routinely under report their earnings as a matter of course!
But you constantly find individuals complaining about this small business tax or that, as if that money wasn’t going to pay for anything. People, such as many businessmen, fail to understand how extensively they benefit personally, as individuals, by contributing to the common good through their tax payments. It’s as if they really feel that they live on an island, cut off from the wider society at large!
It’s not hard to decry one’s small business tax, however the rhetoric almost never bears out under closer scrutiny. During the 2008 Presidential campaign, one self-described “Joe the Plumber” even accosted then-candidate Obama in order to assail his suggestion at moderately increasing the tax rate for small businesses by three percent if and only if they had more than $250,000 in revenue annually. In reality, ninety-eight percent of all the businesses in America generate less than that level of annual income. Yet the complaints never cease from many business owners concerning their unfair burdens, and Joe the Plumber became quite the campaign fixture in the waning days of the 2008 Presidential campaign.