Charles Isely

It was interesting listening to Becky talk about pass-through "firms" today and how maybe taxing them or eliminating them might help with the national deficit. The term "firm" is used on Wall Street but rarely on Main Street. Pass-through entities are mainly mom and pop stores and, although their company doesn't pay federal taxes, the income passes throught to the owners who pay taxes on profit. That is, if they are lucky enough to have a profit. The main tax advantage to pass-through entities is that they aren't double taxed on dividends. Although a benefit, I am not sure that it compensates for the fact that, unlike public companies, the owners of these small companies often times have loans with financial institutions that they have personally guaranteed by putting up everything they own. If we eliminate any tax benefits to small companies (that employ a lot of our national work force) and require them to pay higher wages and follow more regulations, well I guess the out come is we will all be either working for large, public "firms" or the government.