Our dysfunctional Congress made us wait till the last moment
to know our tax fate. Obama and the Democrats still want to take money from the
rich and give to the poor; Robin Hood style or is it Lenin style otherwise
known as wealth redistribution. The Republicans are against raising taxes
especially on the wealthy and they are all about cutting spending especially on
programs that help the poor and elderly; Medicaid & Medicare.
One tax that we will see in our pay checks immediately is
not really a new tax but brings back the 2% cut from the Social Security
payroll tax for the last 2 years. That was a nice gift by Obama to put more
money in our pockets to spend and help the economy. This is not a huge change
but you will see less on payday.
One of the biggies is the INCOME TAX RATE increase on the so
called wealthy. Please remember that these Bush- era tax cuts were only
supposed to be temporary but to bring them back to their “normal” levels during
a recession would have been a bad move so they were extended making income
taxes the lowest they have been in history.
Obama needs extra revenues to spend on his wealth
redistribution policies so he originally targeted the “rich” who made over $250,000.
Well this is preposterous since a couple making $250,000 is far from
realistically being rich especially if they have a young family. Congress
finally settled on $450,000 as an amount that designates a couple as “rich” and
so their taxes for amounts above that level went from 35% to 39.6%, everything
else in the Bush cuts remains as it was.
Please also remember that people making $300,000 or more
cannot use itemized deductions or personal exemptions like others do, they are “capped”
because they make “too” much money so they are punished?
I have to add that 50% of American workers pay no taxes at
all while the top 10% of earners pay most of the taxes on income; is that fair?
France just instituted a 75% income tax on people earning more than a $1
million and so those people are leaving France for countries that are not so
rabidly socialistic; is that what we want to happen here?
I don’t have a problem with the new income tax rates but
they will not solve our financial problems alone.
Taxes on CAPITAL GAINS AND DIVIDENDS will go from 15% to
20%. This tax is on the “gains” that a person makes on investments. In my case,
if I had sold my company last year I would have paid a 15% tax, this year if I
sell it will be 20% and that is a big chunk of money I earned through 30+ years
of hard labor, going to our government to waste as it sees fit.
Another tax that affects me personally or my specific
business which is medical device manufacturing is a 2.3% tax on all products I
make and sell in the U.S. This tax is to pay for some of the new healthcare
plans coming under Obamacare.
I will of course pass this on to my customers who are
medical distributors who will pass it on to their customers who are medical
facilities like hospitals and clinics. Congress bitches about the ever
increasing costs in healthcare and here they are increasing the costs
themselves; does that make any sense?
There is another Obamacare tax of 3.8% that will be applied
to investment income for couples making $250,000 or above. I will investigate
this tax some more since I am not sure if the tax applies to investment income
over $250,000 which makes some sense or to couples who have a gross income of
above $250,000 which makes no sense.
Oops this is getting long…more taxes on the flip side.
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