President Obama said yesterday it was “time to let the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans…expire,” while calling on Congress to extend the Bush-era cuts for Americans earning under $250,000.

Obama said his proposal to extend these tax cuts would provide “certainty” for small business owners and middle-class Americans, who would otherwise “see their taxes go up by $2,200 starting on January first of next year.”

In a White House statement, the president said his position on tax cuts for the wealthy would no doubt be debated between the parties, but urged Congress to pass the tax cut extension for lower earners as soon as possible.  

“The Republicans say they don't want to raise taxes on the middle class. I don't want to raise taxes on the middle class… Let's agree to do what we agree on,” he said

One of the most contentious issues about allowing some of the tax cuts to expire has been the potential impact of a tax increase for business owners and “job creators.”

“What the president is proposing is therefore a massive tax increase on job creators and on small business. Small businesses are overwhelmingly being taxed not at a corporate rate, but at the individual tax rate. So successful small businesses will see their taxes go up dramatically and that will kill jobs,” said presidential contender Mitt Romney, citing the recent jobs report.

Nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 80,000 in June, while the unemployment rate remained stuck at 8.2 per cent, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

On this, Obama said “97 per cent of small businesses fall under the $250,000 threshold,” and that this was therefore not a tax on job creators. He added that the “trickle down” of prosperity in the American economy had not worked since the tax cuts were put in place.

However, Romney’s campaign stressed that taxes should not be raised “on anyone” at this time, according to Andrea Saul, a spokesperson for the campaign.

In his briefing, Obama said the tax cuts he wanted to expire are the ones “least likely to promote growth,” and added that he might “feel differently if we were still in surplus.”

“In many ways, the fate of the tax cut for the wealthiest Americans will be decided by the outcome of the next election. My opponent will fight to keep them in place. I will fight to end them,” said Obama.