Are you aware that the proposed increase in payroll taxes by Obama is based on HOUSEHOLD income?
Last week, Barack Obama revealed his plan to shore up Social Security’s shaky finances by raising the income level on which the payroll tax is applied. Currently, incomes above $102,000 are exempt, with that threshold rising every year indexed to wage inflation. Mr. Obama would keep that limit in place, but then assess payroll taxes on incomes above $250,000, which his campaign claims would apply to only the richest 3% of Americans. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Mr. Obama’s new tax would siphon off 0.4% of gross domestic product annually. Combined with Mr. Obama’s other tax-hike initiatives, “the total tax on labor would be close to 60 percent. In high-tax states like California and New York, the top rate would be even higher.”
Would it help Social Security’s financing problems? Mr. Obama has no idea. One of his senior economic advisers admitted to me that no one on the campaign has run any detailed models or performed any rigorous analysis. When one proposes an enormous tax increase, shouldn’t there at least be a spreadsheet somewhere?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121435112024101581.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
But the most alarming thing about Mr. Obama’s proposal is that the $250,000 threshold, above which the payroll tax would be applied, refers to household income, not individual income. So it’s quite deceptive when he claims that the $250,000 threshold will “ensure that lifting the payroll tax cap does not ensnare any middle class Americans.”
Not that far fetched depending on where you live and having a higher ed degree. With a 2 person income it is closer than you imagine.
Tags: Aware, Based, household, Income, Increase, Obama, Payroll, PROPOSED, taxes
Comments (6)
“middle class” families don’t make $250k where the hell are you living???
Pleasen check your facts. That is BS
Yes, fair answerer above, some middle class families do make $250,000 a year. My family is one of them. You must hale from a real shanty to think that $250k is “rich.”
Obama hopes to punish those who have achieved success, and it , as you say has not been shown that this would work. where is the data to back his claims?
I think anyone running for president who wants to take us back to the pre-Industrial Revolution era, should be looked at very closely as someone who just might be a possible threat to society.
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Today he says only the rich, tomorrow it will be everyone. Just like the income tax, when it passed at 1%, the Democrats said it would NEVER be more than 4% and ONLY the rich would ever pay. It’s called creeping taxation, it never goes away.
It is not fair that those making $250,000/year will be paying into SSI and not able to collect what they paid into it. Social Security will begin to incur annual operating “losses” in 2018, when its outlays first exceed its tax revenues. To cover the shortfall and to “stay open,” Social Security will use up its “Trust Fund” from 2018 to 2042. There is no trust fund only iou’s, it’s all spent in the general fund. There is no guarantee of benefits to anyone.
Not surprising, coming from a guy who feels it is politically correct to punish the10% who already pay 72% of the annual tax bill. He also supports record high funding for nanny state welfare programs. His economic plans would include imposing runaway taxation on every working family making upwards of $60,000 per year and encourage double digit interest rates reminiscent of the “Hillbilly Jim” Carter years. BO’s economic advisors strategy is no different than that of every democrat since JFK…”Tax and Spend!”