Next year, the dividend tax rate would increase to the higher personal income tax rate of 39.6%. Including the phasing out of certain deductions and exemptions, the rate is 41%. Finally, if you add the 3.8% investment tax surcharge in ObamaCare, the 2013 dividend tax rate would be 44.8% – nearly triple today's 15% rate.
But dividends are paid after the corporation pays taxes on its profits. If you assume a maximum 35% corporate tax rate and a 44.8% dividend tax, the total tax on earnings paid as dividends would be 64.1%.
According to a study by the Wall Street Journal…
Historical experience indicates that corporate dividend payouts are highly sensitive to the dividend tax. Dividends fell out of favor in the 1990s when the dividend tax rate was roughly twice the rate of capital gains.
When the rate fell to 15% on January 1, 2003, dividends reported on tax returns nearly doubled to $196 billion from $103 billion the year before the tax cut. By 2006, dividend income had grown to nearly $337 billion, more than three times the pre-tax cut level.
And according to a Cato Institute study, 22 S&P 500 companies that hadn't paid dividends before the tax cut started paying them in 2003 and 2004. It's no mystery… Money goes where it is treated best. Prohibitive dividend taxes drive companies to do other things with their capital, like simply retaining the earnings or buying back stock. You can be sure these companies are already working with swarms of lawyers to find ways around this. One easy solution is to expedite cash distributions… Assuming this tax increase becomes law, we'll see lots of companies pay large, one-time "special" dividends, as they're called…
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This won't be the last state to write something like this.
Wyoming House advances doomsday bill
By JEREMY PELZER Star-Tribune capital bureau trib.com | Posted: Friday, February 24, 2012 6:00 pm | (106) Comments
CHEYENNE — State representatives on Friday advanced legislation to launch a study into what Wyoming should do in the event of a complete economic or political collapse in the United States.
House Bill 85 passed on first reading by a voice vote. It would create a state-run government continuity task force, which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government.
The task force would look at the feasibility of
Wyoming issuing its own alternative currency, if needed. And House members approved an amendment Friday by state Rep. Kermit Brown, R-Laramie, to have the task force also examine conditions under which Wyoming would need to implement its own military draft, raise a standing army, and acquire strike aircraft and an aircraft carrier.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. David Miller, R-Riverton, has said he doesn’t anticipate any major crises hitting America anytime soon. But with the national debt exceeding $15 trillion and protest movements growing around the country, Miller said Wyoming — which has a comparatively good economy and sound state finances — needs to make sure it’s protected should any unexpected emergency hit the U.S.
Several House members spoke in favor of the legislation, saying there was no harm in preparing for the worst.
“I don’t think there’s anyone in this room today what would come up here and say that this country is in good shape, that the world is stable and in good shape — because that is clearly not the case,” state Rep. Lorraine Quarberg, R-Thermopolis, said. “To put your head in the sand and think that nothing bad’s going to happen, and that we have no obligation to the citizens of the state of Wyoming to at least have the discussion, is not healthy.”
Wyoming’s Department of Homeland Security already has a statewide crisis management plan, but it doesn’t cover what the state should do in the event of an extreme nationwide political or economic collapse. In recent years, lawmakers in at least six states have introduced legislation to create a state currency, all unsuccessfully.
The task force would include state lawmakers, the director of the Wyoming Department of Homeland Security, the Wyoming attorney general and the Wyoming National Guard’s adjutant general, among others.
The bill must pass two more House votes before it would head to the Senate for consideration. The original bill appropriated $32,000 for the task force, though the Joint Appropriations Committee slashed that number in half earlier this week.
University of Wyoming political science professor Jim King said the potential for a complete unraveling of the U.S. government and economy is “astronomically remote” in the foreseeable future.
But King noted that the federal government set up a Continuity of Government Commission in 2002, of which former U.S. Sen. Al Simpson, R-Wyo., was co-chairman. However, King said he didn’t know of any states that had established a similar board.
Contact capital bureau reporter Jeremy Pelzer at 307-632-1244 or jeremy.pelzer@trib,com
Read more: http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/wyoming-house-advances-doomsday-bill/article_af6e1b2b-0ca4-553f-85e9-92c0f58c00bd.html#ixzz1ncXBPtJq
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Romney Speaks to an Empty Stadium
Mitt Romney "unveiled" his economic plan — again — to about 1,200 members of the Detroit Economic Club this afternoon.
For a speech about taxes, that's a pretty good turnout. So good, in fact that the campaign had to find a bigger venue.
Their solution? Ford Field Stadium, the 65,000-seat football arena.
According to the Detroit Free Press, the Romney campaign spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to make the stadium look full for television cameras:
About 100 news media representatives and 50 or so TV cameras will set up behind the guests, so that it will be clear Romney is speaking to a crowd....They scrapped three earlier plans: one to have Romney stand in the end zone, speaking up to guests seated in the stands; another to have him on the sidelines near midfield, speaking to guests seated in the stadium's middle sections, and an initial plan to hold the event at the Westin Book Cadillac, which quickly became oversold.
Steve Grigorian, chief operating officer for the Economic Club, said the two earlier Ford Field plans were changed because camera angles would have made it appear there was no one in the stadium but Romney.
Their plan worked — kinda. CSPAN coverage actually did not look too bad — the audience, made up mostly of men in suits and ties, filled the screen whenever the cameras panned back.
But this is the 21st century. Reporters at the event immediately began tweeting photos that showed that Romney was, in fact, speaking to an empty stadium.
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I haven't confirmed this video information, so if any of you can, let me know.
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TPTB can't move fast enough to try and control the internet.
Report: Internet radicalizes U.S. Muslims quickly
Young American Muslims can become radicalized online very quickly and with few warning signs, becoming potential terrorists before federal agencies can identify them, a new congressional report warned Monday.
Zachary Chester, a 22-year-old Virginia man now serving 25 years for terrorism crimes, took less than two years to transform “from an average American kid to a hardened supporter of terrorist organizations,” according to a study of his case by staff from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The bipartisan report analyzes his prolific online writing and correspondence with staff investigators after his guilty plea October 2010 to three terrorism-related felonies. The charges included attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization through his efforts to join al-Shabab, the al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia.
“Chester represents a growing breed of young Americans who have such comfort and facility with social media that they can self-radicalize to violent Islamist extremism in an accelerated time period, compared to more traditional routes to radicalization,” the report said.
Chester, who converted to Islam after graduating high school in 2008, is “a harbinger, not an outlier,” according to the report.
The report concluded that the federal government lacks a coordinated strategy to combat online radicalization, although it called a new State Department initiative aimed at countering terrorist chat on social media sites “encouraging but nascent.”
“The United States currently has a haphazard approach to dealing with global Internet radicalization and propaganda,” the report said.
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Here is video about Obama's war on religious freedom and the Catholic Church. No matter your religion, this should worry you. It's just another way our "leaders" are trying to control us.
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