Word: taxes
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...Throw tax cuts and job creation together, and you are likely to get a bevy of supporters in Washington - on both sides of the political divide. Yet President Obama's proposal to give companies an Uncle Sam rebate for hiring workers has been anything but a slam dunk. The idea, which Obama proposed last year, was dropped from a House of Representatives jobs bill. A similar measure has been proposed but not yet passed in the Senate...
...Obama is not giving up on the idea. On Friday, Jan. 29, at an event in Baltimore, he fleshed out his idea for a job-creation tax credit, saying it would induce companies to hire workers. Under the Obama plan, businesses would reportedly get a $5,000 tax credit to offset payroll taxes for each new employee. Companies would be eligible for a tax break if they raised salaries for current workers or increased employee hours. While the tax credit is open to companies of any size, the maximum tax benefit an individual firm can receive is $500,000. Obama...
...issue, though, is how many companies would actually deserve the tax credit. Nearly 12 months after Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus bill, and in the wake of a homebuyer tax credit and Cash for Clunkers, economists and others are paying more attention to the collateral cost of stimulus. The question with this proposal is how many of the million companies that Obama predicts would be awarded a job-creation tax credit would have hired workers anyway...
...sounds good because it's for small businesses and job creation," says economist Dean Baker of the liberal-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research. "But basically, you are paying companies to hire workers that would have been hired even if you hadn't handed out tax breaks...
Just how many companies would get the tax credit undeservedly is up for debate. If the Cash for Clunkers program or the homebuyers' tax credit is any guide, the number would be relatively high. Car-research firm Edmunds estimates that just 18% of the nearly 700,000 automobiles that were bought through the Cash for Clunkers program were a result of the stimulus. The rest, 82%, went to people who would have gotten new wheels anyway. The $8,000 homebuyer tax credit did a little better. In that instance, economists estimate that 33% of the 1.4 million people who collected...