Obamacare includes such a variety and volume of negative policies that it’s hard to keep track of them all. Here is a list of 10 terrible provisions that every American should be aware of: It increases taxes on families earning over $250,000. In 2013, the employee portion of the Medicare payroll tax will increase from 1.45 percent to 2.35 percent for families earning $250,000 or more and individuals earning $200,000 or more. The income threshold is not indexed for inflation, so more and more middle-income families will be hit by …
EXCLUSIVE: It could be said that President Obama has never seen a tax hike he doesn’t like — whether it’s letting the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire, insisting on higher taxes for job creators, and yesterday calling on Congress to raise taxes on the oil industry. But as much as the President wants to raise taxes, Heritage has discovered that there are even more tax hikes hidden in his budget, adding up to a total of $2 trillion in higher taxes. In a new report, Heritage’s Curtis Dubay uncovers Obama’s hidden …
In a recent article titled “Hill Weighs Tax Trade-offs,” Politico reports that Congress is considering lowering the corporate tax rate and replacing the lost revenue with higher tax rates on capital gains and dividends. But the article cites no “Hill sources” considering such an ill-conceived swap. There are only vague quotes at the very end of the article from Senators Rob Portman (R–OH) and Max Baucus (D–MT) about the need for corporate tax reform—hardly an endorsement of the plan. This unwise plan has legs only in the minds of the …
To hear liberals tell the tale, you might think that most Americans want to tax the pants off businesses and wealthy Americans, making them pay their “fair share,” as President Obama would have you believe. But according to a new poll, that simply isn’t the case. In fact, the vast majority of likely voters want individuals and businesses to pay lower rates. The Hill reports: Three-quarters of likely voters believe the nation’s top earners should pay lower, not higher, tax rates, according to a new poll for The Hill. The …
President Obama is insistent that taxes must go up to close the deficit. He says it’s just common sense that taxes must go up, because the math says so. But if he gets his way, the numbers won’t add up the way he says they will. President Obama wants to raise taxes on “the rich.” But the Treasury will never collect the revenue he says will come from such hikes, because the rich will change their behavior to escape the punitive levies. Case in point from Britain, where Parliament recently …
This is no time to be raising taxes on anyone. This is sufficiently obvious that even President Obama and House Republicans agree on it. And so now all sides support a simple extension of the payroll tax holiday through 2012. Hallelujah. It’s about time. The payroll tax holiday began in 2011, when the Social Security payroll tax on employees was reduced from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent. This cut taxes by a $1,000 for a family with $50,000 in wage income. For a working family, that’s real money. However, the …
President Obama used his State of the Union address Tuesday to outline his idea of fairness. To put it simply, that means redistributing wealth by raising taxes on the most successful Americans. “If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes,” Obama declared. He added: “Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.” Heritage’s Curtis Dubay …
How many times should your money be taxed? One time? Two times? Three times? Four? Sounds like a ridiculous proposition, but that’s the true story of capital gains taxes in America, and it’s one that’s not being told in the continuing debate over Governor Mitt Romney’s taxes. For more than a week, the media has focused on the subject of just how much Romney pays in taxes. On Tuesday, the governor released his tax returns indicating that he paid about 15 percent in taxes last year. At first blush, that …
In this week’s Heritage in Focus, Heritage director of communications, Rory Cooper, discusses the president’s State of the Union address. Click here to listen. What’s Heritage’s take on the State of the Union? What’s something Americans should have heard in the speech, but didn’t? What’s the best way to put our country on the right track? Make sure to listen to hear answers to these questions and more!
Much has been made of Mitt Romney’s asserted 15 percent or so tax rate. There is both a material error and an irony to this story. The release of Romney’s tax returns for 2009 and 2010 and a preliminary assessment for 2011 shows a remarkably consistent picture. First, he makes a pretty penny, but we knew that. His income is about $20 million a year, and he consistently pays about 15 percent in federal income tax. Most of his income is either dividends or capital gains, which are each taxed …
