Tag: Barack Obama

Taxes And The Romney Tax Plan

Romney Tax Plan

If you are looking for information on the 2010 taxes and what the Romney tax plan is if he wins the election, maybe this will help you.

One of the things that Romney said he does not want to do is cut taxes for the well off. He said that high income taxpayers will have fewer exemptions and deductions. He said that if those numbers didn’t come down, they’d get a tax break. Romney said that he is proposing a reduction in the tax rate but that he also wants to close exemptions and deductions at the high end so that the revenues will stay the same. He also wants to lower the heavy load on the middle income people. Another thing he wants to cut individual income tax rates, reduce tax preferences, reduce the corporate income tax, eliminate the estate tax, and more. As for the taxes enacted in the 2010 health reform legislation, he wants to repeal it and the AMT.

The plan would reduce the six income tax rates so that the top rate would go down to 28 percent and the bottom rate would go down to 8 percent. The Repeal of the AMP would increase tax savings from rate cuts.

You can find more information on Romney’s tax plan if you are still confused. You can look it up online.

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SR&ED and the Federal Budget

The Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) program, introduced in the 1980s, is a federal tax incentive program administered by the Canadian Revenue Agency, which provided $3.6 billion in tax assistance for research and development in 2011. In the past year, the SR&ED or SRED program was reviewed by a panel led by OpenText’s Thomas Jenkins which led to a series of recommended changes to the program presented to the federal government. Despite dramatic speculations of program overhauls in anticipation of the budget, the SR&ED program continues to be one of the most lucrative R&D incentive programs in the industrial world, with the enhanced Investment Tax Credit (for smaller businesses) rate maintained at 35%.

Current eligible SR&ED expenditures are based on salary and wages, materials, overhead, contracts, and capital expenditures. The 2012 federal budget proposed four core adjustments to the program. The proposed changes are as follows: the Prescribed Proxy Amount (PPA) method of overhead calculation is to be reduced from 65 to 55 percent of direct labour costs by 2014; capital costs will no longer be eligible for the credit in 2014 and onward; eligible third-party contract payments will decrease from 100 to 80 percent in 2013; and the General Investment Tax Credit (for large corporations and foreign-owned companies) will see a five-percent reduction from 20 percent to 15 percent in 2014.

Capital-intensive industries will be affected through the first two recommended changes. SR&ED overhead costs are calculated by one of two approaches: a direct method approach, and an indirect approach using a percentage of labour (proxy) expenditures. The Prescribed Proxy Amount (PPA) is seeing a 10-percent reduction to 55 percent in a two-phase implementation; the PPA will be reduced to 60 percent in 2013, and 55 percent in 2012. The elimination of capital from the SR&ED expenditure base will have an impact on industries reliant on the purchase and upgrade of equipment and machinery.

Currently, 100 percent of eligible sub-contract payments can be claimed as SR&ED expenditures, which will be marginally reduced 20 percent effective 2013. The largest SR&ED program savings will accumulate from the reduction of the general rate investment tax credit, applying primarily to larger corporations and foreign-owned entities. The general ITC was reduced from 20 to 15 percent.  The recommendations will have limited effect on small- and medium-sized Canadian Controlled Private Corporations (CCPCs), as these companies will retain the enhanced 35-percent ITC rate on the first $3 million of expenditures. Overall, the changes to the SR&ED program will contribute to a simplified process, supported through additional funds allocated to improving the administration of the program.

This article was written by Mahrie Boyle, SR&ED and OIDMTC Team Specialist with NorthBridge Consultants.

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Obama Believes That Taxes Help In Debt Reduction

President Obama believes that the U.S. can reduce its $15 trillion-plus federal debt by generating revenue from the increase in taxes.

While attending the Business Roundtable talks Obama stated that along with finding ways to cut spending, revenue had to also be dealt with. He believes that the people of America understand that this must be done in order to solve the country’s financial problems.

Taxes will be on everyone’s minds at election time.

The opponents of Obama- Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, all are in opposition of increasing taxes. They argue that the creations of jobs and the economy’s growth will not benefit from the tax increases.

The GOP Republicans have led the way in White House budget crises by opposing any hikes in taxes.

No matter what the election outcome is in November, December is sure to bring any tax increase issues to the forefront.

The end of the year will bring to an end the tax cuts that were signed by then-President George W. Bush, along with the recently signed payroll tax cut.
Obama’s desire is to end the tax cuts signed by Bush for those individuals making a yearly income of more than $200,000. All the while he is pushing for a rule that would require at least 30 percent of a millionaire’s income to be paid in taxes.

Obama claims that his only desire is to create a balanced approach to reduce debt, not creating huge tax increases.

It is believed that the economy can be stabilized by making moderate tax adjustments, and by doing this, America can be back on top in the future.

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Did Tim Geithner Use Turbo Tax to Determine the Detroit Employment Rate?

The Obama administration has been pushing hard recently to receive the American public’s approval of the bailouts given to America’s top automakers. Started by the preceding White house administration, these bailouts have proved to be a failure in the current administration’s policy where taxpayers once again have to pick up the tab. Taxes 2010 accounted for a majority of what the last two White House administrations paid the top automakers in Detroit to increase jobs and spurt economic growth.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner recently claimed that the bailout led to an increase in jobs in the city of Detroit. When analyzing the unemployment figures for Detroit, the numbers show that since Obama took office the unemployment rate in Detroit has only fallen by one percentage point. This shows that Geithner’s claims sound a bit deceptive. When looking at the number of jobs in metropolitan Detroit, there were 713,390 jobs in Detroit when President Obama took office. As of April 2011, the figures state that there are 695,200 Detroit jobs. This is a decrease in jobs by 18,000. The results are the same for the wider Detroit area. There were 1.7822 million jobs in 2009. As of April 2011 there are 1.7398 million jobs in Detroit. This is a decrease of 43,000 jobs. If a comparison is done for statewide jobs then the results also show a decline.  Geithner previously claimed that TurboTax lead to his mis-filing of tax credits, therefore pundits are make  a similar joke of this accounting again.

What caused the jobless rate to fall so sharply? To reflect the nationwide trend, people have been removed from the Detroit workforce in such large numbers while at the same time the number of real jobs has decreased as well. Geithner deceptively cast the auto bailout in terms of jobs returning to Detroit. The actual numbers reflect differently in Detroit as well as the rest of the USA.