Tax THIS!
Just a reminder, taxes are already going up on “the rich” in just three weeks:
Starting Jan. 1, investment income for individuals earning over $200,000 and households earning over $250,000 will be subject to a new 3.8 percent tax. Further, regular income above those thresholds will be hit with a .9 percent Medicare surtax. Should the Bush tax rates expire for those workers, those increases will be compounded.
What Obama wants is additional tax increases on top of the ones he and the Democrats imposed two years ago.
UPDATE: I almost forgot why I put “the rich” in quotes. And that is, you’re now “in the top 2% of earners” if you’re in the top 20% of earners. The NYT has that story for you:
Affluent people are much more likely than low-income people to have health insurance, and now they will, in effect, help pay for coverage for many lower-income families. Among the most affluent fifth of households, those affected will see tax increases averaging $6,000 next year, economists estimate. [Emphasis added.]
That top fifth includes households making $75k or so a year. But, yes, please let’s do keep talking about “millionaires and billionaires.”
It’s Obama’s party. We’re just paying for it.
Well, the Washington Post has already figured out how to dodge some of the taxes the NY Times loves by paying all their 2013 dividends in 2012. If the NY Times hadn’t already spiralled so far down the drain that they could still afford to pay dividends (they stopped doing so in 2008) does anyone not believe they’d be doing the same?
BTW, NY Times stock went from a high of $53 in 2002 to about $8 today. There were no splits or other adjustments to cause that, just good, solid, Obama-style failure.
Well, if we go over the cliff, these increases will be lost in the return to the Clinton-era rates; then, the administration can blame Republican intransigence for all the increases. An argument supporting those who claim the administration wants sequestration to occur?
That’s not correct. The ObamaCare tax hikes will not expire along with the Bush tax rates. Those are completely separate laws, one of which is set to expire on Jan 1, the same day the other is set to take effect.
No, no, no. That’s not what the guy you’re responding to is saying. He’s saying:
a) Most people are unaware of how their taxes are already going to go up, and any coverage of this is swamped by the coverage of the return to Clinton-era rates;
b) If the Bush tax cuts expire that will be seen by most people as the cause of 100% of their tax increases (including the unrelated Obama tax hikes), i.e. the Republicans get the blame for the Obama tax hikes which no Republican voted for.
I misunderstood then. Thanks for the clarification.
Taking a page from Prof. Reynolds book, I’ll bore you all with my repetition – “Grab all that you legally can. Grab with both hands. Welcome to Democrat World.”
PS – I’m boring, not Prof. Reynolds – I wouldn’t dream of insulting him that way!
PPS – Mr. Green is not boring either!!
PPPS – And yes I’m being facetious with my “Grab all that you…” refrain – what else but theater of the absurd is left to rational people who are watching the spectacular hypocrisy and mendacity of the current administration and its Big Media cheer squad?
“top fifth includes households making $75k or so a year”
$75k earners, welcome to the exclusive club of the millionaires. Do you feel rich and special now?
It was noted somewhere that those who earn less than $65,000 a year, after taxes, and disqualified for freebies and subsidies, are worse off than the “poor” who receive welfares. Those who receive welfares have the freedom to enjoy life without working their tails off.
Unless you’re a single male with no children making just less than 30K.
Then you’d better find a second job. You’re making _just_ enough that you get nothing back from the Feds, but you also don’t qualify for assistance (not that I would want to be beholden to this gang of Corruptocrats anyway).
Welcome to Australia. Our Medicare “Levy” is 1.5% of regular income. We also are now paying a carbon tax and a mining tax (companies pay this but pass it on to us). The carbon tax alone is responsible for a $500 rise in our annual utility bills, and it’s still going up.
Plus we have mandated health insurance for ‘rich’ people which costs $1200 A QUARTER for hospital and medical for a family which we must pay or face a fine equivalent to it. And don’t get me started on the “Luxury Car Tax” which is 15% of the value of any car costing $68k which in Australia is a lot of them.
That’s on top of other taxes and duties etc. So if you think you’re getting it bad, then don’t come down here. If you earn over $300,000 a year, expect to pay at least half of that in tax. You start working for yourself in January.
I would be delighted to find family health insurance for $400 a month. What I can get for $400/mo is catastrophic insurance with a $10K deductible.
How about all of the people who truly cannot afford it, the unemployed and underemployed?
We are sending them the bill, too. No?
No, they are sending you the bill c/o Uncle Sam.
Together my spouse and I, each working full time private sector jobs, and with a small home business, barely throw ourselves over the line into the top 20%.
We’ve struggled for years with the fiscal headwinds from this administration.
But today, top hats and cigars all around! We’ve finally arrived, as “the rich!” The NYT tells us so!
Reminds me of a Saturday Night Live skit from the 1970′s. Dan Ackroyd is doing his smarmiest Jimmy Carter impression, telling us that “inflation is your friend.”
“Wouldn’t you like to live in a $1 million home, and drive a $100,000 car? I know I would. Well, with inflation, you keep your same house and car, but they are worth so much more!”
Yes! The hundred dollar cigar sketch, as I always thought of it. A classic. Who’d have ever thought it would become so relevant again.
Starting Jan. 1, investment income for individuals earning over $200,000 and households earning over $250,000
Yet another example of the marriage penalty in the tax laws. Why isn’t the households limit twice the individual limit? Likewise, the Clinton tax rates we’re returning to include marriage penalties. And to think some people wonder why marriage is declining as an institution (see Dr. Helen for many other reasons). When you tax something, you get less of it.
I wonder more about why gays want to get marry.
I suspect quite a few don’t, but play along with the ones who do because there’s no point in arguing about it.
I am agnostic on the issue. If it amounts to gay people doing the exact same things they’re doing now, only with a bit of jewelery and a fancy party involved? meh. Not worth getting worked up about. Best-case scenario, some precedents will come out of the inevitable gay divorce cases that will help to remedy the current gender biases in family/divorce courts.