"6 Months Until the Largest Tax Hikes in History"

Personal income tax rates will rise. The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed). The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent. All the rates in between will also rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates. The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:

- The 10% bracket rises to an expanded 15%
- The 25% bracket rises to 28%
- The 28% bracket rises to 31%
- The 33% bracket rises to 36%
- The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%

Higher taxes on marriage and family. The marriage penalty (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of income. The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child. The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level. The dependent care and adoption tax credits will be cut.

The return of the Death Tax. This year, there is no death tax. For those dying on or after January 1 2011, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million. A person leaving behind two homes and a retirement account could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones.

Higher tax rates on savers and investors. The capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 20 percent in 2011. The dividends tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 39.6 percent in 2011. These rates will rise another 3.8 percent in 2013.

Second Wave: Obamacare

There are over twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare. Several will first go into effect on January 1, 2011. They include:

http://www.atr.org/userfiles/040510p...ealthtaxes.pdf

Third Wave: The Alternative Minimum Tax and Employer Tax Hikes

When Americans prepare to file their tax returns in January of 2011, theyll be in for a nasty surprisethe AMT wont be held harmless, and many tax relief provisions will have expired. The major items include:

The AMT will ensnare over 28 million families, up from 4 million last year. According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, Congress failure to index the AMT will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying familiesrising from 4 million last year to 28.5 million. These families will have to calculate their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level. The AMT was created in 1969 to ensnare a handful of taxpayers.

Small business expensing will be slashed and 50% expensing will disappear. Small businesses can normally expense (rather than slowly-deduct, or depreciate) equipment purchases up to $250,000. This will be cut all the way down to $25,000. Larger businesses can expense half of their purchases of equipment. In January of 2011, all of it will have to be depreciated.

Taxes will be raised on all types of businesses. There are literally scores of tax hikes on business that will take place. The biggest is the loss of the research and experimentation tax credit, but there are many, many others. Combining high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost jobs.

Tax Benefits for Education and Teaching Reduced. The deduction for tuition and fees will not be available. Tax credits for education will be limited. Teachers will no longer be able to deduct classroom expenses. Coverdell Education Savings Accounts will be cut. Employer-provided educational assistance is curtailed. The student loan interest deduction will be disallowed for hundreds of thousands of families.


Read more: http://www.atr.org/sixmonths.html?co...#ixzz0scbeRK3N

Originally Posted by FormerLurker

If Best Buy normally sells an ink cartridge for $9.99, and they have a week-long sale on many items including the ink cartridge which has a sale price of $8.99...... is it a "price increase" when the sale ends as announced after one week and the ink cartridge returns to its everyday low price of $9.99?

Originally Posted by MJ1970

Let me ask you this:

If the Republicans had the presidency and filibuster-proof majorities in the House and Senate would you support the Democrats in doing anything legally possible to stop the Republicans from ramming through whatever legislation they wanted? Would you consider the Democrats to be standing on principle in doing this?

Originally Posted by jimmac

It's just that your position was so transparent. And for the record I've listed both parties in this discussion so that hardly makes me polarized anything.

I'm sure if the reform was done in the same manner, you can expect the same result. 2000+ page documents that no one has read and that we have to pass to see what is in them and how they work isn't any sort of model to hold up or be proud about. Likewise muck like those reform efforts, if the the rhetoric claims a "reform" but instead doubles the requirements and costs, then expect opposition.

The health care "reform" has been shown to be a total scam already. It excluded the Medicare cost fix as an example and those high risk pools are already going bankrupt almost before they've started as it is already clear that "savings" won't be achieved in any form or fashion with the high cost patients via best practices, electronic records or anything short of outright rationing.

'm sure this ( tax reform because that's what we're talking about except for the example of cooperation between parties ) would go really smooth if there was just one party running the show ( like the Republicans ). Uh huh.