Begrudging 3% of profits is not absurd when it is in terms of risk. Imagine you paying 3% of profits on a 50/50 coin toss game. Even a single percent will teeter you to a losing proposition. Businesses do not make money every year, thus they want to be compensated with higher returns when they do make money. Unless the IRS compensates you during losing years, every dollar taxed demands that your odds of winning must be much higher. And, while there are loss carry-forward rules, it doesn't help your risk profile because it's game over if you hit bankruptcy by not having enough cash at hand to pay debts and expenses (and your assets get sold at a steep firesale discount).

Now, to be fair, we have no way of knowing if 3% is too much for his risk profile. It may or may not be. But, business risk is also difficult to estimate. As it is, it is difficult enough for the business owner. What chance does a bureaucrat who never owned a business or worked a normal job have?

Absolutely.

But it's also a straightforward breach of both regular and business ethics to attempt to use one's position of authority to intimidate one's employees into voting a particular way.

And it's just plain incontinent to issue a letter like that, considering that both Obama and Romney are planning to cut the corporate tax rate. By about the same amount, too.

Nah, their jobs will get outsourced, then they'll get fired.

> Thomas Jefferson, the author of our great Constitution

Ha. Thanks for calling attention to that, I had totally missed it. Perhaps Mr. Siegel had a habit of napping during civics class?