Hasn’t Barack Obama already gotten his tax hike on the “rich” in the form of ObamaCare? The IRS sure seems to think so.
The Internal Revenue Service has released new rules for investment income taxes on capital gains and dividends earned by high-income individuals that passed Congress as part of the 2010 healthcare reform law.
The 3.8 percent surtax on investment income, meant to help pay for healthcare, goes into effect in 2013. It is the first surtax to be applied to capital gains and dividend income.
The tax affects only individuals with more than $200,000 in modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), and married couples filing jointly with more than $250,000 of MAGI.
The tax applies to a broad range of investment securities ranging from stocks and bonds to commodity securities and specialized derivatives.
The 159 pages of rules spell out when the tax applies to trusts and annuities, as well as to individual securities traders.
This will not bring in the money needed to fund ObamaCare and it won’t make health care any better either, but it will do a few other things. It will drive more money overseas, it will curb some investors’ appetite for investing and risking their own money, which may hurt employment in most sectors. But it will help a few more lawyers, tax bureaucrats and tax accountants find more work, so, yay! I guess.
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