In Tax Cut Plan, Debate Over the Definition of Rich

Much of the debate about whether to extend the Bush tax cuts has focused on big economic issues: how the decision might affect the fragile economy, the widening federal deficit and hiring by small businesses.

As the political battle drags on, however, it has also veered into a more basic matter of fairness, whether a person who earns more than $200,000 a year should be taxed at rates similar to those who make $5 million.

President Obama has proposed preserving the cuts for middle-class Americans and letting them expire for the top 2.5 percent of taxpayers — individuals who make more than $200,000 a year and families whose income exceeds $250,000.

But others in Congress have questioned why ending what Mr. Obama frequently calls “tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires” should also raise taxes on families making $250,000. With the Senate unlikely to vote on the matter until after the midterm elections, some Democrats are pushing for a compromise that would leave the cuts in place for those higher up the income scale.

“I think the $250,000 level is too low,” said Senator James Webb, Democrat of Virginia. “I’m asking that it be raised.”

One proposal being discussed is a millionaires’ tax, which would create one or two additional tax brackets for the wealthiest Americans and eliminate the Bush tax cuts only for those who earn more than seven-figure incomes.

But Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress have thus far held firm to the dividing line of $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for families. And others warn that making the tax code more complicated often has the unintended consequence of encouraging taxpayers to circumvent the system.

“If you make the tax law simpler, more easily understood and fairer, you end up with a higher level of compliance and more revenue,” said Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, co-sponsor of a tax overhaul plan that would eliminate many deductions and exemptions and reduce the total number of brackets from six to three.

Leaders in the Senate announced last week that they would not vote on the matter until after the elections on Nov. 2 because some Democrats in tight races worried that Mr. Obama’s plan would leave them vulnerable to campaign attack ads accusing them of raising taxes.

Most of the opposition to the plan has come from those who warn that ending the cuts, even on the wealthiest, would further weaken the struggling economy and harm small businesses.

But because the cuts will have expired for everyone on Jan. 1 unless Congress takes action, lawmakers are virtually certain to revisit the issue in the lame-duck session.

At the heart of the debate is the fact that, like most Western countries, the United States has a progressive tax code that levies higher rates on people with higher incomes. But the concept of class and the issue of taxes are both so politically charged that discussions about how to calibrate those rates and how much income qualifies someone as rich in the contemporary United States are incendiary.

During the presidential campaign in 2008, the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, set off a fury when he was asked the dividing line between middle class and rich and replied that it was $5 million, a statement he said was intended as a joke. Mr. Obama’s response was $150,000, a figure that is three times the median family income.

With unemployment at 9.6 percent and the economy languishing, discussions about the financial pressures facing the wealthiest Americans can quickly devolve into shouting matches.

A University of Chicago professor earlier this month wrote a post on an academic blog complaining that if Mr. Obama’s proposal became law, he and his wife, who earn more than $300,000 combined, might have to lay off their housekeeper.

Responses to the post were so visceral and angry that the professor, M. Todd Henderson, deleted it from the Internet, saying that the “electronic lynch mob” had made him fear for his family’s safety.

But in some expensive sections of the country, many families with income levels near the $250,000 cutoff insist that they have more in common with middle-class Americans than millionaires or billionaires.

“You take a couple in Westchester County, a police officer with a lot of overtime and a principal at a public school,” said Vincent R. Cervone, a certified public accountant in New York City. “They’re grateful to be working. They aren’t in danger of eviction or starving. But the cost of the average house is $500,000 — five times the national average. Taxes are higher than the rest of the country. If they have a couple of children in college, can you call them rich? Not by any common-sense standard.”

The dispute over what income level qualifies as rich is caused, in part, by the tendency of people to gauge their own wealth by comparing themselves to those closest to them. A study released this month by two Princeton University professors found that in most of the country, people feel comfortably middle class if they earn $70,000. But in New York City, the figure was $165,000. The median income in New York City is $55,980, according to the Census Bureau.