Looks like there was maybe an interesting vote on the minimum wage bill, House Bill 1027. I haven’t seen the news reports and am going only off of the stuff posted on the General Assembly’s website, so I hope I am not getting this wrong.
The House Ways & Means passed the bill as amended by a vote of 14 to 10 along party lines. The amendment increased an inheritance tax exemption from $100,000 to $200,000. The rest of the bill increases the minimum wage from $5.15/hour currently to $6/hour on 9/1/2007, $6.75 on 3/1/08, and $7.50/hour on 9/1/08.
It also increases the wage claims the Commissioner of Labor can take assignments on from $800 to $3,000. (Basically, for these claims, the Department of Labor can act on behalf of the employee against the employer attempting to get the employee paid.)
However, the House Republicans attempted to substitute their own minority committee report. Recall, that the House Dems passed the bill to the House with an amendment increasing the inheritance tax exemption from $100,000 to $200,000. Doubling the exemption was insufficient for the House Republicans. With their proposal, the exemption would have gone to $200,000 on July 1, 2007; to $300,000 on July 1, 2008; and the inheritance tax would have been eliminated after July 1, 2009. This proposal was defeated by a vote of 48 to 51.
I guess this pretty well highlights the nature of the class warfare between the parties. The fact that our legislators see inheritance tax breaks as a natural counterpart to a minimum wage increase disturbs me a bit. But, it’s not really a fair fight. The Democrats do not seem to fight nearly as hard for the poor as their counterparts do for the very rich.
Why (he asks rhetorically) is it always the estate taxes singled out for elimination? Sure, everybody hates taxes. If we could fund government without taxes, that would be neat. But, since that isn’t going to happen and we are going to need taxes of some sort, why not target the more objectionable taxes first? The moral claim of a worker to his or her paycheck at the end of the week is clearly stronger than the moral claim of an heir to the proceeds of a decedent’s estate. So, it seems like a no brainer that the income tax ought to be reduced or eliminated long before we start reducing estate taxes.
[tags]HB1027-2007, taxes, class warfare [/tags]
Is that before or after the 10%-per-day damages are calculated.
The Republicans in the General Assembly have been trying to guy Indiana’s wage payment law for at least the past two sessions. It’s disappointing to me that the Democrats are caving here?
What good does it do to raise the minimum wage if the employer can simply elect not to pay the employees at all? An employee who makes less than $800 per check is unlikely to be able to afford a private attorney.
House Republicans: EVIL
House Democrats: SPINELESS
Hmm, something about that pattern is familiar…
Er, swap the punctuation marks at the ends of the first two paragraphs.
I handled wage claims for a period of time. I think the dollar amount refers to the base amount and not the penalties. But, given how the Department of Labor handles it, in my experience, it probably doesn’t matter.
The process I’ve seen is that the employee submits the claim. If it looks vaguely credible, the Department will send a letter to the employer asking for the employer to respond or pay up. If the employer doesn’t pay up and the employee’s claim still looks somewhat credible, the Dept. of Labor will refer the claim to a private attorney. However, it’s up to the private attorney and the employee to come up with a fee agreement.
With the possibility of what amounts to triple damages (if more than 20 days have passed) and attorney’s fees, a fee arrangement is usually possible.
Although the minimum wage hasn’t effected me for twenty five years I’m all for increasing it.The statement by some Republicans that it is a job killer have for the most part been proven false.I point to states that have passed a minimum wage hike in the past and it has shown not to have hindered the creation of jobs.The Chamber of Commerce will be against this and anything they are against I’m for!
I’m not convinced of the benefits of the minimum wage – I’ll be curious to see the affect of the coming increases.
I think it has the potential to hurt people whose labor is not currently worth the minimum wage to an employer, but who need entry-level employment where they can gain and increase their job skills.
I think if you raised it to $20.00 you would definitely see noticeable impact on job creation. Is that a good plan – ratchet it up until it hurts, then back off?
Hm…If I get this straight, there is something inherently objectionable about toll roads (or at least using them as a ‘profit center’) but there’s nothing inherently wrong with confiscating someone’s wealth upon his/her death while it’s been taxed all the while it was being earned. I will probably never be faced with an estate tax, so I have no dog in the fight. In fact, having dependents and a modest income, I don’t pay much in federal taxes. However, the fundamental unfairness of an onerous estate tax should be obvious to everyone.
I guess I don’t understand what constitutes a “moral” claim. In this world view, the government has all real “moral” claim to wealth insofar as it “needs” it for its just governmental purposes, whatever those might be. After that, individuals can have what’s left over. In this world order, individuals have more of a right to “wages” than other types of wealth as determined by the government. That sounds a lot like socialism and/or communism to me: To each according to his needs. Since the heirs apparently don’t “need” this money, they have no “moral claim” to it. Last time I checked, this is a country where we still believe in private property, not wealth redistribution for its own sake, as the estate tax clearly is. I was thinking about writing a will and maybe setting up a trust for my kids, but since they don’t have a “moral” claim to my assests, I’ll just make my trust payable to the IRS.
Not sure if I was unclear or if you just misread what I wrote, because you certainly didn’t address what I said. So, I’ll make an effort to be more clear. If you disagree with my reasoning, that’s fine; but it looks like you’re disagreeing with something that was never said.
The government will exist. There are certain services a government must provide. These services require money. So, taxes are a fact of life. The question is, what kind of tax. Let’s just make things simple for the sake of argument. Which tax is more justifiable – the estate tax or the income tax? I say the estate tax is the lesser of the two evils. Why? Not because the heir needs the money less.
But because the heir didn’t work for the money. The wage-earner worked for his money. So, I contend, the wage-earner deserves his paycheck more than the heir deserves his inheritance.
Need has very little to do with it. There can easily be poor heirs and rich wage earners. I’m not making a judgment about the people receiving the money. I’m making a judgment about the manner in which the money is coming into the hands of the recipient. I’m simply saying that you have a stronger claim to something you’ve earned than you do to a gift.
With that premise in mind, I think that if we’re going to go about eliminating or reducing taxes, we should firsts eliminate or reduce taxes on earned money before focusing on gifted money.