Tax cut bill does nothing for entrepreneurs
Work for a living? Then you want to read this, and remember, a skunk by any other name still smells like a skunk. The Entrepreneur Magnet Act is a skunk.
Full disclosure, I am an entrepreneur. I own a small manufacturing business in Gallatin. I work with my hands and back. Odds are you are one too, Montana is full of bootstrappin’ entrepreneurs like us.
Our income is taxed at a rate of 4.8%. Working people in our state are taxed at 4.8%.
Currently, income from corporate stock is taxed at only 2.8%. The Entrepreneur Magnet Act makes it 0%.
Use your hands to make money while you work, Montana will tax you at the highest rate. Use your wealth to make money while you sleep, Montana won’t tax you at all.
Exact wording from Senate Bill 184, “an alternative tax rate of 0% is imposed on the net long-term capital gain that is attributable to the sale or exchange of capital stock of a corporation.”
Only the Yellowstone Club crowd is stoked. If we’re lucky, this magnet will attract more of their friends to move here and drive up home prices even more! This only creates an off-shore type tax haven for the uber wealthy. It does not attract entrepreneurs and insults us of the working class.
This taxes police, firefighters and teachers at the higher rate while cutting revenue that could be used to increase their pay, literally, so wealthy stockholders will not be taxed.
Want to help Montana entrepreneurs? Affordable housing to attract workers. Grants to train employees.
Call it what you want but another tax cut for the trading class does nothing for entrepreneurs.
A skunk by any other name still smells like a skunk. Oppose SB 184.
Derek Ivester
Bozeman
Montanans need, deserve a $15 minimum wage
If someone earning the minimum wage in Montana is fortunate enough to be able to work full-time hours (and many are not), she or he would earn only $18,200/ year, which is 84% of the federal poverty line for a family of two. The percentage of people in households supported by a low-wage worker living in or near poverty in Montana is 29.1%. It’s crystal clear that at the current minimum wage, Montana workers struggle paycheck to-paycheck.
We need to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour in Montana, linked to cost-of-living increases so that the lowest-paid among us are unable to earn a living wage. More than half of all workers in Montana make less than $15/hr, and a $15/ hr minimum wage in Montana would raise yearly wages to $31,200 annually. This would lift tens of thousands of Montanans out of poverty.
Furthermore, one in four working Montana women would get a raise if the minimum is lifted to $15.
The current minimum wage in Montana is simply not enough. We have much work to do to ensure a fair and just society — and raising the minimum wage in Montana to make it a living wage is part of it. It is time to do right by working Montanans and raise the minimum wage incrementally to $15/hr.
Whether it’s passed through Congress or done here in Montana, working Montanans need a raise. Too many working people in Montana are not paid enough to afford the basics, and Montana families can’t wait.
Andy Boyd
Bozeman
Bozeman Daily Chronicle Letters to the Editor 3/9/21