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With about 10 weeks left, it is growing increasingly likely that the Bush tax cuts will expire without any action being taken, business owners and tax advisers say.

That has people fuming, not because the tax cuts will go away, but because elected leaders failed to provide any clear direction as to what actions companies and individuals need to take to prepare to do business in the coming year.

"It's amateur hour in Washington," said Cliff Anglewicz, CEO of material handling and construction equipment businesses Yes Equipment and Services Inc. of Menomonee Falls, Wis., and its division JCB of Milwaukee.

"They keep talking about jobs, jobs, jobs," Anglewicz said. "They have no empathy for what it takes to hire people and what it takes to pay for all the benefits and the taxes and what little bit is left over for the person who takes the risk."

He's not alone in his dissatisfaction with Washington politicians.

"People in manufacturing, the owners, are not only scared because the economy is so crappy, they're furious with the politicians," said Michael Retzer, executive director of the Milwaukee chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Association. "You get the talk, but they're not walking the walk."

Retzer is controller at Stroh- wig Industries Inc. in Richfield, Wis., an engineering and tool-and-die company.

No one ever thought it would come to this, tax professionals say.

"The best I can tell people is, 'Here's what we know right now, and if this comes to pass, here's what you should do.' But the rules could change after it's too late to do anything about it," said Tim Steffen, senior vice president and financial and estate planning director for Robert W. Baird & Co.

In his nearly 20 years of working on tax issues, Steffen said, he has never seen anything like the current situation in Washington.

"I'm less optimistic that something will happen between now and year end" to resolve the tax issue, Steffen added.

The 2001 tax cuts were passed and signed into law after terrorist attacks shocked the nation and rattled its economy.

The cuts changed tax brackets, lowering the tax rate for those who pay taxes. The cuts also did several other things, including lowering the estate tax — all the way to zero in 2010. The changes also doubled the deduction taxpayers can take for each of their children and reduced the tax rates on dividends and capital gains.

Nearly all of that goes away Dec. 31.

"There's at least something in there that impacts every single person, and that is the change in the overall tax brackets," Steffen said. "The lowest bracket today is 10 percent. That bracket would disappear and it would go to 15 percent. Everybody from the bottom income levels up would feel that."

The situation has made financial planning involving taxes all but impossible.

"It's hard to plan when you don't know what the rules or the laws are going to be a year from now," said Keith Rode, a CPA and tax partner for accounting firm Clifton Gunderson LLP.

The way events are unfolding, no one in public office has to take responsibility for raising taxes. Tax rates will simply increase because that's what happens under a decade-old law.

"I would argue and say, 'Well, gee, both parties are at fault if taxes go up.' At this point, no one's done anything. Nobody can come to an agreement as to what's the right answer and how to resolve it," Rode said. "It's amazing what an election year will do."

Both sides have ideas about what they want to see happen with the Bush tax cuts. Much of what is being said is lost in election-year rhetoric.

Here's generally how major players in the debate stand on the issue, according to Mark Robyn, staff economist for the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax research organization based in Washington.

• President Barack Obama wants to extend the tax cuts for people making less than $200,000, or $250,000 for married couples.

• Congressional Democrats have a similar proposal.

• Congressional Republicans want to extend all of the Bush tax cuts.

"I don't think there are any politicians who I can think of who favor letting all of the Bush tax cuts expire, at least not right now," Robyn said. "That being said, there's a lot of disagreement. ... You kind of expect to see a big fight over what's going to happen."

If the tax cuts are allowed to expire, many believe it will create conditions that will hammer small business.

Some businesses, particularly those set up as S corporations, would certainly be affected. According to the IRS, S corporations are those that elect to pass corporate income, losses, deductions and credit through to their shareholders for federal tax purposes.

"Shareholders of S corporations report the flow-through of income and losses on their personal tax returns and are assessed tax at their individual income tax rates," the IRS says.

It's hard to predict what the overall effect of the competing proposals would be on small businesses.

"The people who want to let those high income tax cuts expire, they want people to believe that small businesses would be virtually unaffected," Robyn said. "The other side of the spectrum is the people who want you to think it will be the end of the world and there will be no more jobs created.

"I think it's somewhere in between those two."

Robyn believes some sort of resolution will be reached soon. Others believe the situation will be resolved early next year after a new Congress is sworn in.

In the meantime, it's easy to see why businesses might not want to make a move. Taxes are another piece of uncertainty facing the American economy. The situation may already be holding back growth.

"If I'm the owner of that business . . . I may not invest as much money into new equipment or to hiring new employees because I'm going to need that money to pay the taxes," Rode said.