[Mb-civic] Cheney Misleads on Small Business Taxes

[The Daily Mislead]

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THE DAILY MIS-LEAD
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CHENEY MISLEADS ON SMALL BUSINESS TAXES

During Tuesday's debate Vice President Cheney claimed that John Kerry's plan to roll back tax cuts for individuals making over $200,000 would negatively impact nearly a million small businesses. Cheney said that, "about 900,000 small businesses will be hit if you do, in fact, do what they want to do with the top bracket."[1] The figure Cheney cited is highly misleading.

Under Cheney's definition a small business is any taxpayer who reports some income - even just $1 - from a small business investment or partnership. By this logic, "every partner at a huge accounting firm or at the largest law firm would represent small businesses."[2] Also, by Cheney's definition, President Bush would have counted as a small business in 2001 because that year "he reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise."[3] The overwhelming majority of actual small businesses are in the lower tax brackets and would be unaffected by the Kerry proposal.[4]

Sources:

1. "Remarks of Vice President Cheney and Senator Edwards in Vice Presidential Debate," The White House, 10/06/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1136375&l=61352.
2. "Misleading Assertions Cover Iraq War and Voting Records," Washington Post, 10/06/04,
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1136375&l=61353.
3. "Are Bush and Cheney "Small Businesses?" Their Ad Counts Them As Such," FactCheck.org, 10/01/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1136375&l=61354.
4. Ibid, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1136375&l=61354.

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