How the Expiring Bush Tax Cuts Affect You

[spidey07]

Hold onto your wallets! You might want to start planning now for the expiration of the bush tax cuts. There are ways you can accelerate/move income forward from 2011 and into 2010. You could also defer your charitable donations into 2011. If you can sell and realize your capital gains in 2010 instead of 2011, then you should do so.

What's more is the phase-out rule knocking out most of your deductions and return of the marriage penalty (which all obama tax policy includes).

http://finance.yahoo.com/taxes/arti...tax-cuts-affect-you?mod=taxes-advice_strategy

Higher Tax Rates for All

You may have been led to believe that only individuals in the top two brackets will face higher federal income taxes when the Bush cuts go bye-bye. Not true! Unless Congress takes action and President Obama goes along, rates will go up for everyone -- not just a sliver of the wealthiest Americans. The current six rate brackets of 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33% and 35% will be replaced by five new brackets with the higher rates of 15%, 28%, 31%, 36% and 39.6%. Just a few months ago, it seemed like a safe bet that Congress would make a fix to keep the existing 10%, 15%, 25% and 28% rate brackets to help out lower and middle-income folks. That bet is now looking iffy.

Before the Bush tax cuts, a nasty phase-out rule could eliminate up to 80% of a higher-income individual's itemized deductions for mortgage interest, state and local taxes, and charitable donations. The rule was gradually eased and finally eliminated this year. Next year, it will be back in full force unless Congress takes action -- which is unlikely. So if you itemize and have adjusted gross income above about $170,000 ($85,000 if you use married filing separate status), be ready for this phase-out rule to take a toll.

 

[GoPackGo]

Its not a tax increase...its just returning to where they should be. You need to pay your fair share!!!!

 

[PokerGuy]

Its not a tax increase...its just returning to where they should be. You need to pay your fair share!!!!

Funny how for liberals "fair share" always means someone else must pay more so they can freeload off the system.

 

[Throckmorton]

Hold onto your wallets! You might want to start planning now for the expiration of the bush tax cuts. There are ways you can accelerate/move income forward from 2011 and into 2010. You could also defer your charitable donations into 2011. If you can sell and realize your capital gains in 2010 instead of 2011, then you should do so.

What's more is the phase-out rule knocking out most of your deductions and return of the marriage penalty (which all obama tax policy includes).

http://finance.yahoo.com/taxes/arti...tax-cuts-affect-you?mod=taxes-advice_strategy

According to the right, half the country pay no taxes, so wouldn't it be a good thing if their taxes went up?

 

[Throckmorton]

Funny how for liberals "fair share" always means someone else must pay more so they can freeload off the system.

Funny how for conservatives, "fair share" means you give tax cuts while funding war on debt, isolating the taxpayer from even the slightest inconvenience.

 

[woolfe9999]

The author of the article provides no evidence to make the case that Congress will not act to ensure that Bush's cuts for the middle class do not expire. It appears to just be the author's gut feeling. I'll wait and see what happens.

I am personally very conflicted on the issue itself, and I wished Obama had not promised this on the campaign trail. Unfortunately I think we need to have an across the board tax increase, to go along with fairly deep spending cuts. However, I also don't want to see an across the board increase, or particularly steep cuts, until probably 2012, due to the likely impact of these measures on the economy. For next year, the tax hike on the wealthy is about all I can stomach in this economic climate. So I guess I'd prefer that Congress act on this and confine the expiration of the Bush cuts to only the weathly, but at the same time I do think we have no choice but to increase it for everyone else, further down the road.

- wolf

 

[her209]

How the Expiring Bush Tax Cuts Affect You

The tax cuts didn't affect me in the first place.

 

[khon]

And here I thought you wanted the deficit reduced ?

Of course the Bush taxcuts are going to expire, as well they should. They were forced through using reconscilliation (the thing you no doubt called evil when the Dems were considering it for healthcare), which means they could not last beyond 10 years.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Well, looking at this graph, I would say that this is a good thing, seeing as how you want to balance the budget.

 

[Attic]

According to the right, half the country pay no taxes, so wouldn't it be a good thing if their taxes went up?

The tax brackets affect those who pay federal taxes, yet you are claiming that adjusting those brackets will affect those paying no federal taxes?

Are you saying those paying no taxes currently are going to pay tax when Bush's tax cuts expire?

 

[Specop 007]

Funny how for conservatives, "fair share" means you give tax cuts while funding war on debt, isolating the taxpayer from even the slightest inconvenience.

Funny how you would choose to ignore that most of the budget is made up of social service payments in some form or another.

Its like blaming eating out once a week for wrecking your budget while you spend $800 a month on a car payment.......

 

[Docnasty]

Things are going to get really bad next year with these tax hikes

 

[Attic]

graph is fail

 

[blackangst1]

According to the right, half the country pay no taxes, so wouldn't it be a good thing if their taxes went up?

They wont. Just the other half who's taxes pay for them will.
Duh.

 

[CaptainGoodnight]

Tax revenues still climbed after the bush tax cuts.

 

[Thump553]

Are we going to launch into yet another tired trickle down economics is good for the economy arugment? The Bush plan was a huge giveaway to the rich, with crumbs for most of us, while utterly destroying the balanced budget. It's time for common sense to prevail.

 

[spidey07]

Are we going to launch into yet another tired trickle down economics is good for the economy arugment? The Bush plan was a huge giveaway to the rich, with crumbs for most of us, while utterly destroying the balanced budget. It's time for common sense to prevail.

Look at the tax rates. The biggest cuts were for the low and middle class.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Funny how you would choose to ignore that most of the budget is made up of social service payments in some form or another.

Its like blaming eating out once a week for wrecking your budget while you spend $800 a month on a car payment.......

A very convenient but ignorant GOP talking point, made possible by the inclusion of SS in the general spending budget which it should never have been. Of course its the largest line item in the budget, but it's offset by the collection of SS taxes which is the largest budget revenue item. But the bottom line is SS payments ARE NOT spending, it is a repayment of debt.

And comparing a debt repayment to taxpayers to totally unfunded war spending is just stupid, thats like comparing the annual interest you pay on a mortgage to how much you spend on hookers and blow.

 

[Sclamoz]

Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.

Mr. Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all.

It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”

Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare.

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

When I mentioned on these panels that we should consider all options for closing this gap — including raising taxes, particularly for the wealthiest people — I was met with several arguments by people who call themselves conservatives and free marketers.

One argument was that the mere suggestion constituted class warfare. I think Mr. Buffett answered that one.

Another argument was that raising taxes actually lowers total revenue, and that only cutting taxes stimulates federal revenue. This is supposedly proved by the history of tax receipts since my friend George W. Bush became president.

In fact, the federal government collected roughly $1.004 trillion in income taxes from individuals in fiscal 2000, the last full year of President Bill Clinton’s merry rule. It fell to a low of $794 billion in 2003 after Mr. Bush’s tax cuts (but not, you understand, because of them, his supporters like to say). Only by the end of fiscal 2006 did income tax revenue surpass the $1 trillion level again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html

I think the liberals Ben Stein and Warren Buffet sum up the situation pretty well.

 

[Turin39789]

good

 

[spidey07]

good

Yeah! Go get those evil rich fat cats!

Oh wait, it's raising taxes for everybody and the biggest rise is in lower and middle class.

 

[BoberFett]

The tax brackets affect those who pay federal taxes, yet you are claiming that adjusting those brackets will affect those paying no federal taxes?

Are you saying those paying no taxes currently are going to pay tax when Bush's tax cuts expire?

Shhhhh, you'll break his tiny, fragile brain.

 

[sandorski]

Tax revenues still climbed after the bush tax cuts.

As long as there's GDP Growth, Tax Revenues will always Increase from any given point(except during Cutting periods). Simple Mathematics, but doesn't mean anything regarding the alleged Economic Stimulus of Tax Cuts.

 

[StageLeft]

Well, if Bush's tax cuts are rescinded it's not like your taxes are going up. The gov is simply rolling back tax BREAKS, right? So, then if that happens Obama can still maintain that he didn't raise taxes for those making $250k. At least this argument is one some sycophants will use, I'm positive. Or, it doesn't matter because these are extreme times (despite them being extreme when the promise was made).

Does Congress need to decide on this before November? Because if it does and it decides not to continue them it's going to be child's play to bury the democrats in campaigns this fall.

 

[Turin39789]

Yeah! Go get those evil rich fat cats!

Oh wait, it's raising taxes for everybody and the biggest rise is in lower and middle class.

I'm paying them. I said yay.