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In Washington, President Joe Biden is patting himself on his back for his plans to raise your taxes.

During his campaign last year, he repeatedly told voters that no one making less than $400,000 annually would pay a dime more in taxes. After he was sworn into office, he morphed his statement to say families making $400,000 wouldn’t pay more in taxes. In some cases, when both spouses are doing well, that effectively changes that $400,000 statement. However, since that won’t affect many in our region, I will leave this point.

Most of the Democrats are supporting his taxing plans. They generally start from the perspective that everyone should pay their fair share. They apparently don’t understand the definition of the term “fair.” Currently, the bottom half of all filers pay only 3% of the total taxes collected each year. While at the same time, the highest 1% earners pay 40% of all taxes collected.

Few of us have much compassion for Jeff Bozo, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and company, but they employ hundreds of thousands throughout the country. Tax advocates seem oblivious to the fact that, at some level of taxation, high-end payers and employers will make decisions about the value of continuing to grow their businesses and where they choose to live. He is proposing increasing capital gains taxes by almost double, from 20% to 39.6%. That, in addition to state taxes, will make it much wiser to move overseas. Again, that does not affect many in our area until the government decides they need more.

CORPORATE TAXES

A greater issue for you and me is Biden’s plan for backdoor taxes that he hopes to instigate. He assumes that we are too stupid to understand.

He has proposed 27% in corporate taxes, and he has stated that he thinks all corporations should pay at least 15% taxes on all their operations, regardless of any tax breaks they have earned.

Since corporations are only a conduit for investors to work together, any additional expenses, such as taxes, will not be paid by corporations but rather by you, the consumer of their product or user of their service. Currently, every corporation, as does every taxpayer, uses the tax laws passed by legislatures to determine their tax liability. If they are creating good jobs and paying good wages, most localities would consider that corporation good for the community. It appears that President Biden believes they are not an asset. His plan will encourage these companies to move to other countries, as was happening under President Barack Obama.

ENERGY POLICY

If income taxes direct and indirect are not of concern to you, look at what President Biden and Governor Ralph Northam’s energy policies are doing to you. Shutting down pipelines, blocking future natural gas exploration, passing legislation that requires that gasoline vehicles be phased out, ending natural gas and coal power plants and requiring utilities to pay for the right to pollute are already driving up the price of gasoline. Soon all of this will drive up the cost of your ability to heat and cool your home.

Governor Northam would have you believe that he has done a great job as a steward of the state budget and your tax dollars. However, the fact is that the excess dollars of receipts over spending is based on two factors.

The federal government has been shoveling money into the economy at a rate four times greater than was lost during the pandemic.

The other major factor, under Northam’s leadership in the last couple of years, is various taxes have increased on our citizens.

CONSIDER THESE FACTORS:

1. For every new dollar raised by the increased minimum wage and other raises to compete, the state is getting 5% more in taxes of that raise.

2. Every time there is an increase at the gas pumps, the state gets a share of that increase.

3. Federal checks coming to families has spurred spending on taxable goods. This has bumped up sales tax receipts.

Every tax dollar collected is driving more government spending. Maybe it would be better to return some to you.

FRANK RUFF JR. serves as the 15th District senator in Virginia. He can be reached at Sen. Ruff@verizon.net, (434) 374-5129 or P.O. Box 332, Clarksville, VA 23927.