harveyc

sbl, while the richest people did get a lower marginal rate on a portion of their income, they also paid the higher rates for that portion of their income as well.

I do have mixed feelings about paying much higher taxes just because I work harder and make more money and at the same time lose a portion of my deductions. I'd rather be able to use those dollars to give to the needy I chose to give to instead of let government decide how to spend my money. Being in California with its high income tax rates makes it all the worse. I've seriously considered moving some of my retail sales to Nevada, but think it's crazy to have to go through hassles like that to keep what I think is a fair share of my earnings.

Before switching to farming full-time, I worked in agricultural lending for almost 30 years and reviewed thousands of tax returns of business earning $50,000 to $10,000,000 or more. I saw folks paying taxes of next to nothing and others paying $1,000,000 per quarter. The people that paid next to nothing either were losing money (real negative cash flow) or expanding businesses and getting the benefit of deferring income, though it eventually catches up to them if they quit expanding. Of course, the rest of society and the economy in general benefited from their business expansion. I can only think of one case out of thousands where a customer made an expenditure solely for the tax benefits. The "funny" thing about it is they were getting into serious financial trouble at the same time. While I'm still expanding and doing new things, I'm doing so mostly to provide my son with more opportunities should he decide to come back to the farm after finishing his schooling. If it wasn't for him, I'd be scaling back instead as the extra work is not worth it for the amount I get to keep. A flat tax would make it more attractive to me, especially if California did the same.

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