Top 2% Not Job Creators or Millionaires in Tax Debate (VIDEO)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-20/top-2-not-job-creators-or-millionaires-in-tax-debate.html



President Barack Obama describes them as “millionaires and billionaires” who can afford to pay higher taxes. Republicans call them “job creators” who need to keep their money so they can hire more workers.

As the Democratic president and his Republican opponents debate whether to extend the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for the top 2 percent of U.S. taxpayers -- individuals earning more than $200,000 a year and married couples making more than $250,000 -- their poll-tested phrases obscure the truth about who would be affected.

They are two-earner professional couples living on the East and West Coasts, doctors, lawyers, engineers and Wall Street executives. Few are billionaires or earn more than $1 million a year, and most are not employers.

“The 2 percent, they’re people who are successful in their professions, but they’re not the absolute rock stars,” said Leonard Burman, an economist at Syracuse University in New York. “There’s a big difference between the 99th percentile and the 99.9th.”

Fewer than 1 percent of the U.S. population have annual income of more than $1 million. In the top two tax brackets, slightly more than one-third -- 35.5 percent -- were employers receiving business income, according to 2007 figures from the Treasury Department.

The U.S. Senate plans to vote next week on an Obama-backed plan to extend expiring income tax cuts for everyone except these top 2 percent of earners. The Republican-led House will vote the following week to extend the cuts for all income levels.