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<div>July 11, 2012</div>
<h1>Small Is So Beautiful</h1>
<h6>By
<span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/gailcollins/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by GAIL COLLINS" target="_blank">GAIL COLLINS</a></span></h6>
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<p>
Our subject for today is the care and feeding of small businesses. </p>
<p>
“I love you guys,” Mitt Romney told a teleconference hosted by the
National Federation of Independent Business. “I love the fact that
you’re working hard to follow your dreams and to build businesses. I — I
love you guys. I love the fact that you’re — that you’re working hard
to — to follow your dreams and to — and to build businesses.” </p>
<p>
To summarize: We love you, guys. </p>
<p>
And they’re everywhere! <b style="color:rgb(255,0,0)">The Small Business Administration defines a
small business as one with fewer than 500 workers, and that’s 99.7
percent of everything out there. “There are 5.7 million firms with
employees in this country, and about 5.7 million have fewer than 500
employees — rounding slightly,” said Robert McIntyre, the director of
Citizens for Tax Justice.</b> </p>
<p>
It’s sort of metaphysical, when you get right down to it. I am you as
you are me and we are one and we are all small businesses. <i>Ich bin ein small business.</i> No wonder politicians want to get on their good side. </p>
<p>
All of this takes us to President Obama’s call for Congress to extend
the Bush tax cuts for families with incomes below $250,000 a year. Most
people, the president said, believe it is wrong to “raise taxes on
middle-class families.” It was certainly a triumphant moment for the
administration’s economic policies. In 2008, who among us could have
hoped that four years in the future, middle-class Americans would be
making $250,000 a year? </p>
<p>
But Romney called the idea “a massive tax increase on job creators and
on small business.” He also denounced it as “another kick in the gut to
the middle class in America,” thus signaling his determination to
broaden the American middle even further, as well as to call everything
the president does a “kick in the gut” for the rest of this campaign
season. </p>
<p>
How do we feel about this argument, people? We are not talking about
business taxes, in the normal sense of the word. If we were, it would
quickly become so incredibly confusing that you would be begging me to
go back to the matter of the dog Romney once tied to the roof of his
car. </p>
<p>
The typical American business owner does not pay corporate taxes. He or
she subtracts expenses from revenues and declares the bottom line as
income. There are many, many advantages to this approach. You can avoid
corporate tax rates, and it’s a lot easier to deduct things. If you’re a
baker of gourmet cupcakes, you can subtract the entire cost of your new
$50,000 ovens from your income, right up front, as well as lunch with
your best friend who is also an occasional cupcake purchaser. </p>
<p>
“There are rules, of course, but both the rules and the implementation
of the rules are fuzzy,” said William Gale, the co-director of the Tax
Policy Center. </p>
<p>
And everybody can get into the game! Including partners in hedge funds
and law firms and investment banks. “Here’s the beauty — each of the
hedge fund principals themselves is a small business,” said Gene
Sperling, director of the National Economic Council. Sperling is a small
business himself because he gets occasional royalty payments for
co-writing a few episodes of “The West Wing.” </p>
<p>
This flight to small is so popular that the Congressional Research
Service concluded that if taxes on high incomes went up, it would
actually create more small businesses because more rich people would
want to “seek self-employment because the opportunities for tax evasion
and avoidance are greater.” </p>
<p>
Small business growth. It’s what makes America great. </p>
<p>
<b style="color:rgb(255,0,0)">When the Republicans claimed that capping the Bush tax cuts at $250,000
would hurt small businesses, the Obama administration quickly retorted
that only about 3 percent of the small business owners have incomes
above $250,000. </b></p>
<p>
Yeah, said the Republicans, but that little slice still represents more
than 900,000 people, and half of all the nation’s business income.
</p>
<p>
Yeah, said the Democrats, but that’s because of the hedge fund managers
and law partners and movie stars with rental property. </p>
<p>
Yeah, said the Republicans, but the high-end sort-of-small businesses
will still cut back on jobs or investment if their taxes go up. Taxes
rise, bad things happen. It’s an article of faith. The Hartford
Financial Group said it did a survey that showed just that, although as
Robb Mandelbaum pointed out in The Times,<b style="color:rgb(255,0,0)"> only 2 percent of the small
businesses surveyed actually cited taxes as their prime concern. </b></p>
<p>
We do know these things: Republicans do not like income taxes, even for
very wealthy people. Possibly particularly for very wealthy people.
Barack Obama, who also has royalty income, is a small business. Possibly
the only small business the Republicans do not love. </p><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
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<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br><br><img src="http://users.moscow.com/waf/WP%20Fox%2001.jpg"><br><br>
</font></span></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br><br><img src="http://users.moscow.com/waf/WP%20Fox%2001.jpg"><br>
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