I was meeting with three clients the other day. One makes enough to cover just basic expenses, the next has a mid-level salary, the third is an entrepreneur made more the the other two combined. They all have very liberal leanings.
The entrepreneur will owe money because as a sole proprietor he has to cover both sides of FICA as well as the income tax. The entrepreneur’s effective tax rat is 36% and the marginal rate is 28%; he is not pleased at the amount of total taxes owed.
Thus the mid-level person was asking how the entrepreneur how he liked being a Republican. Even tho they have known each other for years and the first two have a small start-up business, they are seeing the differences of their choices come out. In a discussion once with the mid-level one, I mentioned that if he were successful with the business he would have to contend with the higher tax rates as well as his family. His reaction to his family paying more in taxes was glee. His response to the business making money was that he had hired me to find way to minimize them.
Taxes and their impact always give all of my clients interesting reactions.