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Guest Post by: Kate Olson

This article in a recent BusinessWeek magazine instantly made me bristle – “Taxing the Not-So-Rich Rich” makes the case that families bringing in a combined income of greater than $250,000 aren’t necessarily wealthy and shouldn’t be taxed as such under presidential nominee (D) Barack Obama’s proposed tax plan. This plan would increase taxes for couples making greater than $250,000/year and individuals making greater than approximately $200,000.

Now, I understand that no one wants to be included in a subset that includes additional taxation, but when (as the article states) the average income of families in the United States is $48,200, how can anyone claim that a family income of 5x the average isn’t well-off?

The defense that the families portrayed in the article (and many of my twitter followers) are using is that it all depends on the area of the country that the family lives in – I disagree. At the risk of sounding extremely judgmental, I find it incredibly sad that people living in obvious comfort (and luxury) dare to claim that they’re at all hard-up when the majority of the country (yes, including me) live on a mere fraction of the $250,000 threshold. Remember, that average of $48,200 is a national average. I guarantee that there are families living in the “high-rent” areas that are making considerably less than even that $48,200 – poverty certainly doesn’t have geographic boundaries.

I think this is the heart of the issue – people spend the money they have. One of my twitter followers, @mclgreenville made this point to me and it’s so true. I remember being completely broke in college and just dying for the day I’d be making $32,000 a year. That seemed like a lot of money for about a month until I adjusted my spending habits to reflect my new income – I then started feeling poor again and started using credit cards again. The families in this article may be stretched to afford the lifestyles to which they are accustomed, but an income of $300,000 is nothing to take lightly.

Of course people don’t want to be taxed more for higher incomes – no one wants to be taxed more! My issue with this article and the families in it is that these people simply don’t have perspective on what constitutes a high income. A friend pointed me toward the Global Rich list this morning and this website just confirmed my thoughts on this matter – according to this index, at a combined family income of $75,000 my family is the 49,322,169 richest one in the world. The shocking part? We are in the top 0.82% in the world.

Makes you think, doesn’t it? Taxes aside, shouldn’t we be thankful for what we have rather than complaining about the little bit we might have to give up?

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Kate Olson is an educator, e-learning and online networking consultant, website designer, blogger, and mother living and working near La Crosse, Wisconsin. Her past professions include accountant (tax, audit, insurance) and stay-at-home mother. She does web design and consulting work as Kate Olson Consulting, LLC.

Kate blogs about her professions and lots of tech/geeky stuff at Kate Says and is also the founder of and writes about her adventures in motherhood at This Mommy Gig. You can also find her on twitter as @kolson29 and at LinkedIn.

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