The Business Owner Blog

Caveat Emptor — the Latin phrase for “Let the Buyer Beware” – has been the orientation of laws governing trade in English speaking Western countries for centuries. That is, buyers of goods bear the bulk of the burden to protect themselves from harm that could befall them in a purchase transaction. Maybe our forefathers were [...]

The September/October 2011 issue of The Business Owner Journal – the award winning how-to publication for owners of small and mid-size private companies – will be delivered to subscribers on September 1, 2011. It will contain straight-to-the point advice in the following areas:

While the poor and the middle class fight the wars and struggle to make ends meet, the rich continue to get extraordinary tax breaks.

Many of the mega-rich wouldn’t mind paying more tax. They are being taxed at historically low rates and many of them don’t think they’re paying their fair share. Taxes should be raised on those that earn more than $1 million per year (237,000 people), and raised more still on people making more than $10 million per year (8,300 people).

Again last week I encountered a businessman who declined to reveal the identity of an unscrupulous company. He had recently engaged the company and found its practices unseemly and designed to deceive. He readily shared with me his time- and money-wasting experience, but when I asked the name of the firm, he said, “I’d rather not say.“

By David L. Perkins, Jr. As a guest of Todd Taylor, a top financial advisor at Merrill Lynch, today I attended a presentation by Andy Friedman – a nonpartisan tax and politics expert known for predicting outcomes of Washington tax and fiscal deliberations. Friedman expects the following over the coming months and years: No default [...]

In a blog post dated April 8 titled “The Wealthy Must Pay More,” I said the only way we will be able to meaningfully reduce our federal deficit is for the rich to pay more, and that our deficits have ballooned the past 30 years in part because tax rates on the rich have declined considerably. I suggested that one way to reduce expenditures is those fortunate (or industrious or smart enough) to find financial success forgo their Social Security benefits. I received some strong comments, not one of which supported my view. They are posted online below the article.

Business owners and investors, our broader economy is definitely growing again. The most widely accepted and used gauge of overall economic activity in the United States—gross domestic product (GDP)—pegs growth of 2.6 percent (annualized rate) in the third quarter of 2010 and 3.1 percent in the fourth quarter. And one should keep in mind that residential construction – a significant contributor to overall GDP – remains moribund. According to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data performed by the managing editor of The Business Owner Journal, residential construction in 2010 was 72percent below what it was in 2005 and basically unchanged from 2009. In fact, only 587,000 houses were built in the United States in 2010; 554,000 in 2009; and 905,000 in 2008. In no other year since 1950 were housing starts below 1 million units!

Bark all you want about taxes — the only way we’re going to balance the budget is for the wealthy to pay more. Deficits have occurred because people with money can afford to pay lobbyists and contribute large sums to campaigns and toward “conservative” efforts that put Republicans in office, who in turn vote for lower taxes on the rich.

Counting beans does not add to our gross domestic product. The money we pay to tax advisors doesn’t do anything for our wealth or welfare. Ditto for the time we spend on tax code compliance.