I just got my new tax tables for my small business. Taxes start at $0 now. Is this the tax reduction Obama promised?

In some other country your child will find himself with less than 55 cents per dollar earned.
Lucky you.

Um, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I just looked at the IRS tables (publication 15-t) and it looks to me like withholding doesn’t begin until $138 for a single person earning a weekly paycheck.

Are you looking at some other table? Perhaps you could post a link to the info.

Are we talking about 2008 taxes or 2009?

There’s a difference between taxes and withholding.

Also, a more accurate analogy would be to promise your child a dollar to do a chore, and then asking him for a quarter because he needs to eat dinner and have clean clothes the next morning, both which are public goods provided by the government of the household.

@EmpressPixie @Michael I’ll find a link because I don’t have a scanner to scan in the table. It is for this year. It is the amount of withholding I need to follow for my employees (well I only have 1 employee but it’s the same) I’ll track it down online and post it soon.

Seriously? You’re blaming him for not being able to better the tax code for a year that started before he took office?

@Michale You are paying taxes now for earnings in 2008 and those rates were put in place before Jan 1, 2008. The budget that is currently being put together now cannot go into effect until the beginning of the fiscal year July 1, 2009. The budget that is in effect for the next 4 years was passed a year ago. When Congress passed the budget and Bush signed it we became legally obliged to spend and tax per that budget.

Now what do you think should be going on in Washington today? Should we pass a well-thought-out budget for the next year or should Congress and the new administration spend the next 4 months nit-picking through the remains of the old budget and pass laws plugging up the tatters.

As the president said, this country is a super large ocean liner and you can’t turn it on a dime.

@galileogirl This is not the taxes you pay by filing at the end of the year, but the current withholding that an employer is required to hold back from their employees.

@EmpressPixie He overturned tons of other stuff Bush did and promised tax cuts for 95% of Americans. Why didn’t he roll back this future change?

Also passed in 2008. Don’t you get it? It has to pass BEFORE it goes into effect. It went into effect on Jan I. Can you say “ex post facto”? Now say “OOPS” and drop it

:: Stops Following own question ::

Seems like Michale has asked a potentially useful question, sorry s/he’s offline. The question MIGHT be, what can the new administration change immediately and what can it not?
As galileogirl and EmpressPixie have explained it, tax laws can’t be changed that fast.
But other things have been. Go again.

The tax table being discussed is on 2009 earnings and those will be settled in 13 months. The tax table itself was passed in 2008 as part of an omnibus tax bill. Two things can happen 1) in this year’s tax bill the Congress can include an adjusted tax rate or put in a deduction as in prior years. 2) There may be a rebate passed.

The president of the United States does not pass laws, the Congress does as every native citizen would know if s/he paid attention in Civics class. The president may make requests but a Democratic Congress will do what they want. All this takes time.

A bill must be written then introduced into the House it then goes to committee and hearings are held and an amended version is sent back for debate by the full House and other changes might be made. Then it goes to the Senate where again there may be committee hearings and debate. Finally both versions go to a joint committee where they come up with a final bill to send to the president, At any point a bill could be delayed by the opposition. As you can imagine this process can take many weeks.