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In my opinion, a lot of it comes down to your definition of "fairness."
BTW he use the term refundable tax credit a LOT. In my understanding "Refundable tax credit" means we're giving people the difference if they're taxes are less than the break. IE $4000 refundable tax credit - if you have $2500 in taxes the government writes you a check for $1500. How is this not essentially welfare or socialism? Welfare should be a separate issue.
Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans: Obama and Biden will dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes. Obama and Biden will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama-Biden proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.
Here's a great example of how I think the Obama mindset is, "let the government do your work for you (and we'll make the rich people pay for it)." I'm sure simplifying tax code is not a bad thing, but having the IRS do your taxes for you just makes them accountants - and the $2 billion of tax preparer fees is going to go to IRS agents instead of accountants (probably more since so many people will want to have the IRS do if for them, probably including me), and has to be paid by someone - people who make more than 250k a year
Families making more than $250,000 will pay either the same or lower tax rates than they paid in
the 1990s. Obama will ask the wealthiest 2% of families to give back a portion of the taxes they have
received over the past eight years to ensure we are restoring fairness and returning to fiscal
responsibility. But no family will pay higher tax rates than they would have paid in the 1990s. In fact,
dividend rates would be 39 percent lower than what President Bush proposed in his 2001 tax cut.
My problems with this underlie my problems with the entire thing. "give back a portion of the teas they received" - they're not giving back - the money that was theirs taken from them in the first place! Probably against their will - since they're only 2% they couldn't possibly stop the majority from increasing the taxes. It's not the government's money! It's not the american people's money! They're the ones that willingly paid it to Starbucks and Wal Mart or whatever! That is so ridiculous I can't believe it!
"restoring fairness" How is taxing one person 40% of their income and another person nothing, or 10% or anything that isn't the same rate, fair? Unfortunately the word "fair" has 30 dictionary definitions so I'm not sure if the Obama team means
1. free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice:
3. moderately large; ample: a fair income
This is the beginning of the polemic against the rich. We're all one nation with the same goals blah blah blah (except the guys who make a lot of money). Easy to do when they're only 2% of the population, therefore not to worry about when it comes to the polls. One weird way to think of it - Good thing they have enough money to make their voice heard!
Obama’s plan will cut taxes overall, reducing revenues to below the levels that prevailed under
Ronald Reagan (less than 18.2 percent of GDP).iii The Obama tax plan is a net tax cut – his tax relief
for middle class families is larger than the revenue raised by his tax changes for families over $250,000.
Coupled with his commitment to cut unnecessary spending, Obama will pay for this tax relief while
bringing down the budget deficit.
Actually I've read that this depends on whether or not Congress decides to keep the cuts we've had under Bush. Could end up in a $2.7 Trillion deficit. Also how in the world is this possible if we plan increasing spending? That's exactly what Bush did he just spent on a war instead of social programs so people don't like him. At least Obam knows how to win a popularity contest.
A $1,000 “Making Work Pay” Tax Credit. For 95 percent of workers and their families—150 million
workers overall—the “Making Work Pay” credit will provide a refundable tax cut of $500 for workers or
$1,000 for working couples.
Who are workers?
Eliminating Income Taxes for Seniors Making Less than $50,000. Barack Obama will eliminate all
income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year. This will eliminate taxes for 7 million seniors
– saving them an average of $1,400 a year-- and will also mean that 27 million seniors will not need to file
an income tax return at all.
Why?
Expanding Retirement Savings Incentives. To increase retirement security, Barack Obama will ensure
that every American worker has the option of saving in an easy, automatic pension account and will expand
the existing Savers Credit to match 50 percent of the first $1,000 of savings for families that earn under
$75,000. He will also make the Savers Credit fully refundable.
Yes, just let the government do it all for you. All you have to do is vote for this administration and you'll get so used to having everything done for you that you couldn't possibly vote for Republicans again. Give us your money and we'll invest it wisely, just like we've wisely invested in overthrowing (or installing, I can't remember?) dictators around the world and invested in spreading democracy! And abstinence education in Aftrica! and tons of random bs! Oh and Social Security, we did a great job managing the money with that one.
Expand Earned Income Tax Credit
increase benefits for families with three or more children,
Why? why not everyone? why just three or more?
Barack Obama will keep taxes low for everyone, while working to reform our tax code and make sure that
everyone pays their fair share. . . .That is why he has called for closing inefficient tax loopholes, cracking down on offshore tax
havens, and repealing a portion of the tax cuts passed in the last eight years for families making over $250,000.
Sorry, I didn't realize that "everyone" excluded families making over $250k. Yeah that's one paragraph. I seriously wonder if Obama considers people who make more than $250K a year Americans, which is weird since that includes his family.
In net, even after these tax changes, the Obama plan is a tax cut. His middle class tax cuts are larger than the
loophole closers and rollbacks that he has proposed for families making over $250,000. According to the Tax
Policy Center, the Obama plan would reduce taxes as a share of the economy to less than 18.2 percent - the
level of taxes that prevailed under President Ronald Reagan.v The Obama plan pays for these tax cuts by cutting
spending overall. Obama’s spending cuts include responsibly ending the war in Iraq, limiting payments to high-
income farmers, cutting subsidies for private plans in Medicare, reforming student loans, cutting earmarks to at
least the level they were in 1994, ending no-bid contracting, and phasing out unnecessary and duplicative
programs. He will also support pay-as-you-go budget rules and a constitutionally acceptable line-item veto to
cut pork-barrel spending. Overall, Barack Obama’s budget will reduce the deficit relative its current level and
its realistic future trajectory.
I've already disputed a lot of these claims. They may be right but we can't take them at face value. Also, while they may be right why are we measuring goodness based on Reagan's tax plan and levels? Why are the 1990's so important? Couldn't it be that tax levels were unfair even then?
It's great that Obama's team says they're going to cut spending but it seems so unlikely given all of the other things they've been talking about. This small list of cuts seems pretty small. Ending the war is great but he's been talking about Iran and Pakistan. "Cutting subsidies for private plans in Medicare" I think this means that if you only get the government's health care money if you go with his health care plan. Which will cost money. I agree with phasing out unnecessary and duplicative (and duplicitous) programs but we highly differ on what these are. For example I think the Fed, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security, etc, etc etc are included in "unnecessary."
Broaden the corporate tax base and eliminate special preferences: Our tax code is riddled with special
interest loopholes that allow some corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid paying their fair share of
taxes.
Wealthy individuals, fair share problem again. The top 5% income earners are already paying 60% of the taxes or something ridiculous like that. How is that a fair share? I'm not sure of the exact numbers but a quick google search pulled up this The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.7 percent of all individual income taxes in 2002. This group of taxpayers has paid more than 30 percent of individual income taxes since 1995. Moreover, since 1990 this group’s tax share has grown faster than their income share.
Also this:http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6
Repealing a portion of the Bush tax cuts for families over $250,000 while continuing to leave their tax
rates at or below where they were in the 1990s:
This is redundant. By repealing the Bush tax cuts they're obviously going back to rates from the 1990s, when they were still taking the vast majority of the tax burden.
likewise adjusted to affect only families over $250,000
Cause these are the bad guys and such a small percentage we can do whatever we want with their money and we can call it fair because we get to decide what's fair
–
Obama will create a new top capital gains rate of 20 percent. Obama’s 20% rate is equal is the lowest rate that existed in the 1990s and the rate that President Bush proposed in 2001. It is almost a third lower than the rate that President Reagan signed into law in 1986.vii
Again, why are they looking to Bush and Reagan for guidance or for validation?
Estate Tax: The estate tax would be effectively repealed for 99.7 percent of estates. For the
remaining 0.3% of estates over $7 million per couple, Obama will retain a rate of 45%. This policy
would cut the number of estates covered by the tax by 84 percent relative to 2000.ix
Any estate tax is so absolutely ridiculous to me- the money has already been taxed when it was earned!!! But since this is just .3% of the population we might as well do it - how are they going to stop it from happening? and 45%!!! I seriously don't understand how the government thinks it can take almost half of a person's estate when they already take 36% every year.
Average Tax Rates Below the 1990s: Overall, the top 1 percent of households – people with an
average income of $1.6 million per year – would see their average federal income and payroll tax
rate increase from 21 percent today to 24 percent, less than the 25 percent these households would
have paid under the tax laws of the late 1990s.x
Again, I don't give a flip about the 90's.
Alternative reading:
This guy is clearly republican, but interesting read to counterbalance the clearly pro-obama descriptions in the comprehensive tax plan
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGExY2UzNjQ5YjAyNWUzZmI2MDQyNmU4MmU2NGI3ZDg=
Also this is supposed to be a balanced view:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1031268,CST-NWS-tax30.article
