Obama tax Proposals

Wrong focus. The problem isn't just low tax rates on the wealthy, it's that the rates don't get paid by anyone with the money to hire an accountant, especially not the rich, to the point where many rich people and corporations pay virtually nothing. Rates may not have to go up, but they do need to be paid in full, not made a mockery of. Then, if rate increases are necessary, by all means the wealthy should pay more, since they benefit more from the system.

Why get into a fight with Republicans over raising rates, when the effective approach would be to say "let's close all the loopholes". Who could argue with that? and, "let's not let the wealthy hide their money in overseas tax shelters", how could the Republican rank and file not understand cheating.

And if hardware store purchases are taxed, why not a tax on stock transactions, and other business dealings?
So many loopholes, exemptions, untaxed transations, hidden funds; why aren't Obama and the Democrats looking for revenue from these sources, which would provide massive revenue?

i am not necessarily against raising rates on the upper brackets, and i am certainly for the end of the Bush giveaways, but it's a joke to raise rates when the current ones aren't even being paid.
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This article gives a few numbers
http://www.alternet.org/economy/ten-numbers-rich-would-fudged

from article above
3. An amount equal to ONE-HALF the GDP is held untaxed overseas by rich Americans.

The Tax Justice Network estimated that between $21 and $32 trillion is hidden offshore, untaxed. With Americans making up 40% of the world's Ultra High Net Worth Individuals, that's $8 to $12 trillion in U.S. money stashed in far-off hiding places.

Based on a historical stock market return of 6%, up to $750 billion of income is lost to the U.S. every year, resulting in a tax loss of about $260 billion.

This website is worth looking at
http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/front_content.php?idcat=2

http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/775-the-rich-are-taxed-enough
following excerpt cut and pasted from transcript of above link

the question of fairness. Is the system, as it is now, at tax rates that exist now, in a
system that -- the one that we have, is it fair? Art Laffer.
Arthur Laffer:
Yeah. No, it's not. It's totally not. And let me use an example if I may, Warren Buffett.
He was sitting there asking my friends and I need to have higher tax rates, and I looked
at his letter to the New York Times, and he said he paid a little less than 7 million in
taxes, and he said his tax rate was 17.4 percent, which I did the math, hold back, I'm a
wiz, but I divided it. He had adjusted gross income of $40 million in that year.

I then went to Forbes. His wealth increased from 40 billion to 50 billion. I went to the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and what you found there is he gave 1.75 billion to
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, not counting his sons’ foundations or his
daughter's foundation. Now, as a definition of "income," to me income is what you
spend, what you give away, and your increase in your wealth. It s called the Simon
definition of income.
 if you look at Warren Buffett,
his income that year was $12 billion, and he paid 7 million in taxes. That is a tax rate of
six 1/100th of 1 percent on his true income. 

That is obnoxious. But it's not because of
any rates raising would change that tax. You've got to broaden the tax base by getting rid of all these exclusions, deductions, eliminations, and tax true income at low rates.

And that is what's fair. The guys who play the game, and you look at the Forbes 500 and you see all of them with their tax exemptions, look at all the 501c3s, all the loopholes.
That's what we've got to go after, not raising tax rates on the last three people who actually pay it.

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the following is a cut and paste from site below
definitely check this site out

http://payupnow.org/

General Electric made $44 billion from 2008 to 2010, but received over $4 billion in tax rebates! (Listen to more...)

Bank of America (BAC)
Forbes asked in 2010: "How did Bank of America not pay any taxes on $4.4 billion in income?" Bloomberg explains: its financial statements were “delusional” (Listen to more…)

Oil giant Exxon made $34 billion of net income in 2009, but paid no income taxes in the United States…(Listen to more)

Citigroup had 4 quarters of billion-dollar profits in 2010, but paid no taxes...(Listen to more)

Wells Fargo (WFC)
Wells Fargo purchased Wachovia and claimed a $19 billion tax credit, despite a record net income of $12.3 billion…(Listen to more)

HP's U.S. income tax rate was 4.3% in 2008 and 2.3% in 2009…

Verizon's 10.5% tax rate is "due to its...venture with Vodafone." Vodaphone has been the primary target in UK Uncut's protests…(Listen to more)

Chevron (CVX)
 Of this year's taxes, just $200 million were paid in the U.S." That's a 1% tax rate…(Listen to more)

Boeing (BA)
 Boeing paid no U.S. taxes on over $4 billion of income in 2010. In fact, they got $124 million back from the taxpayers…(Listen to more)

AIG helped individuals trying to shelter hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from federal taxes…(Listen to more)

Carnival (CCL)
 Carnival Cruise Lines paid 1% in taxes on its $11.5 billion profit…

Koch Industries (private)
The government subsidies and tax-free benefits that accrue to the "libertarian" Koch brothers have been well documented…(Listen to more)