Interesting facts about "small businesses"

[lomiller]

...
My pay was cut because my profession is already suffering.

So it's irrelevant to the discussion. If you are going to throw in information you know isn't relevant then you should not be surprised if people try to make sense of it in the conversation they are actually having.

 

[drkitten]

My pay was cut because my profession is already suffering.

So you're a lying cheeseweasel, too, then.

How can "adding a tax" cause you to have already taken a 5% pay cut when the tax hasn't ben imposed yet?

 

[Puppycow]

...

You have a serious reading comprehension problem. And quite frankly, I'm insulted that you called my employers lying cheeseweasels. They (the three senior partners) are far better men than you. My pay was cut because my profession is already suffering. Adding an additional tax will just make it worse.

An additional tax on marginal income over $250,000. How will that make it worse for you? Do you make more than that?

 

[balrog666]

You guys already know my opinion on raising taxes but I make over 250k so it directly takes money out of my pocket and sends it to washington. Also in my state they are also trying to add another tax of 5-9% on income over 200k.

BTW if everything goes as planned I should be creating approximately 25 new high paying (current median salary 105k) jobs over the next year. I *am* the kind of person that creates growth and I live in a low tax state for a reason. If the tax burden in the US continues to increase we are going to actively start trying to shelter some of our money. Our business is worldwide so there isn't any particular reason to bring money back to the US at all in many cases.

You are late to the party.

 

[balrog666]

So you're a lying cheeseweasel, too, then.

How can "adding a tax" cause you to have already taken a 5% pay cut when the tax hasn't ben imposed yet?

Speaking of lying cheeseweasels ... I take it the recession hasn't impacted academia?

 

[drkitten]

I take it the recession hasn't impacted academia?

Academia in general, yes. Myself in particular, not really.

Many of the major universities saw their endowments drop like,... like something really heavy dropping really really fast. In fact, the speed at which their endowments dropped was exceeded only by the speed at which their donations dropped, and of course, the state-funded schools -- university as well as primary/secondary -- are all being hit by education budget cuts.

E.g., here's some news from Pennsylvania: "Indiana University of Pennsylvania has become the fifth State System of Higher Education school to notify its faculty union that layoffs are a possibility in 2011-12." (From California.) (From Florida.)

But I'm quite good at what I do, so I survived the cut. And -- as is becoming oddly typical in this recession -- the survivors are doing well out of it. I think I personally got something like a ten percent raise last year.

 

[Newtons Bit]

An additional tax on marginal income over $250,000. How will that make it worse for you? Do you make more than that?

The firm has 140 people. Most of it is owned by 3 guys. They pay that tax rate. If their tax rate goes up, they will need to find a way to lower costs to maintain the same ROI.

90% of the costs are payroll.

Can you guess what will happen?

 

[drkitten]

Can you guess what will happen?

Their ROI will drop. Irrespective of tax policy; they're in a dying industry (by your own admission).

 

[Corsair 115]

Nothing in that says that the 5% paycut I took was because of the tax. It says, "I've already taken a 5% paycut.".

You may not have made that connection in this thread, but you did make such a connection in this thread in the USA Politics section. Here is the entire post in question (emphasis added):

The firm I work for already gave me a 5% paycut thanks in part to the talk about raising the firms taxes 5%. Yea, it's a "small" business.

Thanks guys! I feel so rich now!

 

[Newtons Bit]

You may not have made that connection in this thread, but you did make such a connection in this thread in the USA Politics section. Here is the entire post in question (emphasis added):

That's not the post he was quoting.

 

[lomiller]

You may not have made that connection in this thread, but you did make such a connection in this thread in the USA Politics section. Here is the entire post in question (emphasis added):

I’m leaning towards the he's a lying cheeseweasel side of things. If he wasn’t trying to link the previous pay cut to the tax increase he had no reason to mention it at all. Most likely he was trying to slip it past in the hopes it would go unchallenged, and backpedal if it was. Sure this isn’t an outright lie, but it’s certainly intellectually dishonest.

 

[drkitten]

That's not the post he was quoting.

I see. So this is a different 5% pay cut you're taking?

You're taking 5% from the prospective tax cuts that haven't been passed, and another 5% because your employers recognize that you're a lying cheeseweasel?

 

[drkitten]

Yea. Construction is a dying industry.

It was in post #20. It's hardly my fault that you cheeseweasels can't keep your lies straight.

 

[oggiesnr]

When National Minimum Wage was introduced in the UK lots of businesses complained it would put them out of business.

It didn't. It had other effects (like depressing wages a bit higher up the scale) but the businesses just got on with it.

The scary thing is that now most vacancies are at NMW.

Steve

 

[Corsair 115]

That's not the post he was quoting.

You stated that the pay reduction you received was not connnected to the question of the (possibly) expiring tax cuts. Yet in the other thread I referenced you did make the connection that the reason for the pay reduction was, in part, due to the prospect of the tax cuts expiring.

When I read your comment in this thread in regards to your pay being cut (in post #9), I immediately thought of your statement in the other thread, which I had read. Evidently drkitten read your comment in this thread about your pay having been reduced and assumed it was related to the matter of the tax cuts being left to expire (post #10). You later state drkitten's assumption that the (possibly) expiring tax cuts were not, in fact, a factor for the pay reduction (post #27). I then follow by pointing out the seeming contradiction between you statement in this thread that the (possibly) expiring tax cuts had no part in your pay reduction and your statement in the other thread where you indicated they did play a part.

That's how my scorecard has the chain of events, at any rate.

So, in the interest of clarity, which is it? Was or was not your pay reduction due in part to the prospect of the tax cuts expiring? Or were there two separate pay reductions, and hence the different statements of causes?

If he wasn’t trying to link the previous pay cut to the tax increase he had no reason to mention it at all.

Well, I certainly took the initial comment about the pay cut as being caused, at least in part, to the possibility of the tax cuts expiring. But then, I also remembered that other thread, so I had a reason to interpret the comment in that manner. But it seems drkitten, at the very least, also took the comment the same way even without that other thread as background reference. It does not seem to me an unreasonable assumption, given the flow of the conversation in the thread up to that point.

 

[Cuddles]

Stay civil and on topic, and leave the poor weasels out of it.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Cuddles

 

[Newtons Bit]

Drkitten is lying when he calls me a liar.

My posts in another thread are about my speculation. Calling my employers lying weasels based on my speculation is exceptionally rude.

Drkitten is also exceptionally rude for calling me a "cheeseweasel" for his inability to understand that when an industry is "suffering" that it is not "dying".

He has lept to conclusions. I'll not address this anymore.

 

[Puppycow]

The firm has 140 people. Most of it is owned by 3 guys. They pay that tax rate. If their tax rate goes up, they will need to find a way to lower costs to maintain the same ROI.

90% of the costs are payroll.

Can you guess what will happen?

Probably nothing.

If you make over $250,000/year and your taxes go up by a few hundred dollars, are you going to punish your employees because of that? What would your opinion be of such a person? Moreover, would it be worth damaging employee morale for a few extra dollars?

Businesses never "maintain the same ROI" year after year anyway. Profit margins change every year.