My taxes just went up....

[yeswecanandwedid]

I thought they weren't supposed to. /sadface

I just received this from my employer...

"As many of you likely already know, new legislation was passed by Congress this week. With that, the purpose of this email is to let you know that you will see changes in the calculation of taxes impacting your pay on or before February 15th, 2013. Please note the following specific FICA tax rate changes below:

2013 Employee Social Security Tax Rate
The reduced Social Security tax rate of 4.2% has expired. You will see a 2% increase in your Social Security tax. The employee social security tax rate has returned to 6.2% on all earnings up to the taxable wage limit of $113,700.
Example: If your gross pay is $1500 after all pre-tax items, under the old rate, you would have paid $84.75 in Social Security taxes. In 2013, the Social Security portion of your FICA tax increases to $114.75 on that same $1500."

[warrior1]

1. It's a good thing

to help SS fund. Sorry it went up but you have to look at the long picture.

[MjolnirTime]

2. Nice try.

[maxsolomon]

3. The FICA rate didn't go UP

The temporary stimulus REDUCTION expired.

And, Social Security is a GOOD THING and you will get the money back if you're lucky enough to live that long.

[avebury]

9. And if Congress doesn't mess with Social Security. nt

[louis-t]

4. Just went back to what everyone was paying before.

[NV Whino]

5. You will welcome this when you come to collect Social Security

That cut should never have been instigated in the first place. Sounds good, and I'm sure it helped some people in the short term, but in the long run, it has hurt Social Security.

[RedSpartan]

6. I have no problem with the rate.

I have a problem that there is a cap. It should be removed.

[LoisB]

12. As someone who goes over the cap each year, I totally agree. It needs to be removed or at the

very least raised.

[RedSpartan]

14. I go over as well. I always thought it might make sense

to lower the rate and remove the cap. Would make it financially easier on all and bring in more money at the same time.

[leveymg]

29. If they would just raise the cap to 1% of the income of top 1%, would pay for SS for all, forever.

[Volzrules]

57. Let me ask you this then..

If you make $50,000 per year and you want to buy a $100,000 life insurance policy and the cost is $50 per month ...do you think the very same $100,000 life insurance policy should cost someone who makes $200,000 more than it costs you? Should a dozen eggs be more expensive based on your income? Social security benefits only pay so much...a person making $80,000 a year will get the same amount as a person who is making $400,000 a year when they retire....the upper payment of ss is a set amount period..

Social security was not intended to be an entitlement program...you pay in you get out unlike welfare programs...so by making people pay in more without an upper limit will make ss another entitlement program....

Or maybe we should just admit it and call it what it is....or charge the people who make more money more for everything regardless of it's value...

[leveymg]

63. Sure, why not make everything sliding scale? With computers, it's easy.

Welcome to DU.

[Volzrules]

65. Seriously!

Cost of an item is related to value, not how much money one makes...unless of course you live in a communist country....

[leveymg]

69. Even in E Germany, they could only dream that everyone carried around a device that broadcast their

locations, relayed their telephone calls to the national surveillance agency, and had a built-in calculator! Perfect for commie plots like mass adoption of sliding scale pricing!

More seriously, we already do sliding scale for medical care - as most hospitals make those with private medical plans supplement indigent patients. Welcome to the Homeland, comrade.

[appleannie1]

26. I agree.

[avebury]

7. It does kind of suck.

I am getting ready to see my first raise in 6 years and I will be lucky if I remain on a par with my take home pay that I had in 2012. Between the increase in FICA and changes made in the benefits package all my raise does is keep me from going into a fiscal hole this year. Next year will be another matter.

[BWAAHAHAHAHAHA]

49. BWAAHAHAHAHAHA!

BWAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bunnies]

8. Obama hates you. nt

[WI_DEM]

10. Most of our taxes went up due to the FICA increase, so what?

It was a temporary holiday anyway extended from one year to two and we need that money for social security.

[unblock]

11. the law just passed said nothing about social security taxes

the 2% temporary cut was already scheduled to expire and expire it did, right on schedule.

[1StrongBlackMan]

13. I was wondering how long it would take ...

before that exact post appeared. Not long I guess?

What would have happened had we gone over the cliff? How would your taxes been effected?

[Yavin4]

22. Answer: Payroll Would Have Returned to the 6% Rate

It's getting to the point where people just post things to slam Obama without even thinking through ANYTHING.

[1StrongBlackMan]

23. And everyone's tax rate ...

would, also, have gone up.

It's getting to the point where people just post things to slam Obama without even thinking through ANYTHING.

Yep. I starting to think I could come to DemocraticUnderground the day after President Obama released the cure for cancer and would a bunch of posts, "holding his feet to the fire" for not curing old age.

[freshwest]

62. +1million.

[freshwest]

61. +1,000.

[eilen]

15. My county/school taxes went up.

I have to send about $370 extra to the bank to cover the shortages this month or my monthly mortgage+escrow payment goes up -this has happened every year for the past 3 years. At least it was under $500 this year. As for the payroll tax, I was opposed to the cut last year, it didn't make much of a difference, much like that 2% raise my employer decided not to give me because they are expanding their healthcare empire (in which I would prefer they furnish me with actual working equipment so I can do my job first, but then I'm not on the Board making all the smart decisions).

[1StrongBlackMan]

24. Your escrow deficiency is, also, ...

a result of the teaparty/gop we elected/allowed to be elected in 2010; but only on the State-house level.

In States across the nation, teaparty/gop Governor's balanced the state budgets by shifting expenses to, and out-right raiding, county/municipal budgets.

[eilen]

46. I'm in upstate NY

Gov. Cuomo is a Democrat. My state senator is John DeFrancisco, a Republican but he is no tea party clown; he is a moderate. He really came through for us when my dh was getting the run around from the state unemployment office. Our then gov Patterson's office blithely ignored our emails. Our County Exec, Joanie Mahoney is also Republican but then again, moderate, works well with the local city Democratic mayor--they worked to redistribute the county sales taxes so the city schools would get a larger share than the 'burbs which is part of the reason my taxes went up--I have no quarrel with that, the city schools need all the help they can get. What frosts my cupcakes is that our local school district is constantly spending lots of money on development to fix the screw-ups from the last school board development projects in which the work was not properly overseen so large errors were made in construction. That and insisting on transporting every student by bus. I'd rather fund the development of sidewalks so kids can walk about the neighborhood safely out of traffic.

[RomneyLies]

16. See post 87. eom

[yeswecanandwedid]

21. How can I tell post numbers? nt

[Tempest]

28. They're on the list of posts just after the story.

And his post has nothing to do with this story. It's a reference to another forum where the poster also started a nonsense thread.

Just like this one.

[yeswecanandwedid]

31. I don't think this is a nonsense thread. It's a valid argument I'm going to hear from repugs. nt

[Tempest]

32. You lying sack of shit

"My taxes just went up...."

YOUR HEADING.

NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO HEAR FROM REPUBLICANS.

Christ, you are as dense as the guy from yesterday.

[11 Bravo]

34. Really? Do you talk in your sleep?

[TexasBushwhacker]

45. Had we gone off the cliff, taxes would have gone up more

If we went back to Clinton era taxes for everyone, a married couple making $60K would go from a 15% bracket to 28%! Yes, everyone is paying a little more in payroll taxes, but income taxes are only going up for income over $400K for singles and $450K for married couples.

[Tempest]

27. LOL!!!! I get the reference. n/t

[PoliticalBiker]

17. Is that before or after...

the deal that was crafted on 12/31?

If it is after, how did they get the details so fast?
I think that was the post-cliff figures that does not take into consideration the last-minute deal

[yeswecanandwedid]

19. Not sure, I assume it was after...

This email just came out today to our entire company. I'm sure they must be pretty solid on the details if the HR team decided to blast this email out.

[yeswecanandwedid]

18. I only posted this...

Because I know my repug "friends" on Facebook will be all over this yapping about how Obama lied and their taxes went up. "He said under 250k it would not go up" blah blah blah. I don't mind, I think it's fine, but it just gives ammo to the dbags on the other side who are just looking for something to complain about.

[Lisa D]

59. Then your repug "friends" are misinformed and will look very silly to most people.

And since when has the other side needed ammo to complain about ammo? They just keep making things up....

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

66. Obama was talking about federal income taxes...

Making the "tax holiday" permanent was never part of either side's plan. Except that the GOP would make it permanent by dismantling Social Security entirely.

[SheilaT]

20. I have to say, that somehow I never noticed any difference

in my take-home pay when the idiotic reduction in the payroll tax went into effect. And no, it's not because I make so incredibly much that I go over it on the first paycheck. It might well be because my exact hours of work often vary from paycheck to paycheck, so that the variation is always more than the decrease, and now the increase, in FICA.

[Thegonagle]

64. Same here.

I'm not going to sugar coat this--GWB's $300 stimulus check got noticed by everyone. He even sent out an "I'm so great" letter with the check. That was good stuff for the Repubes and the GWB brand.

Obama's payroll withholding reduction might have put more money back into the economy, but hardly anybody even noticed. Overall, it was was a political bomb.

[budkin]

25. I was upset at first until I realized what it was

SS withholding.

[Filibuster Harry]

30. Get over it!! The 4.2% was a temporary stimulus. It should never had been reduced from 6.2%

to 4.2% in the first place. The gov't is suppose to be replacing that 2 year difference of 2% with money from general revenues -- it had to end sometime. It replaced the Working Pay Credit -- which was a credit on low income of $ 400 single and $ 800 joint; basically 2% on wages up to a max of $ 20,000. It was a credit on your tax returns but only low income could qualify whereas the 2% was on everyone's wages up to $110,000.

So get over it. It was a temporary stimulus for 2 years. Back now to the original 6.2% social security withholding.

[kestrel91316]

33. No tax increase. Things just returned to the way they were as recently as a year or so ago.

Stop whining. It applies to all working stiffs equally. The impact is far greater on the working poor than on you, I'm sure.

[magical thyme]

35. Your income taxes did not go up.

Your temporary FICA 2% holiday expired as scheduled.

Now join us in getting President Obama to "fix" Social Security by eliminating the "cap" so that everybody pays into Social Security based on their earnings, instead of the best off not paying anything on their higher earnings.

I had a period of about 8 years where I earned over the cap. Even though I temporarily benefited, it seemed wrong to me back then. Now that I'm approaching retirement age and I've been bilked out of much of my retirement savings so I'll be living on social security, it seems even more wrong.

I'd rather see a strong and secure social security than a few extra dollars saved that were ripe for the picking by expert fraudsters.

[BlueDemKev]

36. The 4.2% payroll tax holiday was only meant to last two years.

Now it's back to 6.2% where it was in 2010. At the end of 2010, with economic growth extremely sluggish, Obama and the outgoing Democratic Congress approved a two-year cut in the payroll taxes from 6.2% to 4.2% to help fuel the economic recovery. It was never intended to be permanent. Trust me, when you retire, the benefits of having a Social Security check come in each month and the Medicare card you'll have in your wallet will far outweigh this meager 2% amount.

[DFW]

37. I don't follow the math

4.2% of $1500 is $63

6.2% of $1500 is $93

[jillan]

38. The difference between Republicans and Democrats? When we say a TEMPORARY tax break ~

we mean it.

The Payroll tax holiday was just temporary to help thru the worst of the recession.

We were lucky to have it while we did.

But, it's over.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

39. That was going to happen regardless of any deal...

Nobody (neither Obama nor the GOP) was trying to extend the FICA reduction. ANY deal would have resulted in the rated going back to its 2010 level.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

47. Yes

[maryellen99]

42. were not the dumbasses that voted for Rmoney like you did nt

[secondwind]

43. PAYROLL TAX HOLIDAY WAS NOT MEANT TO BE PERMANENT.

[av8rdave]

44. Oh, my. Nobody every explained the temporary FICA reduction to you

But just think: Had the GOP had their way, your income tax would have gone up right along with it!

[Dkc05]

48. There should be no. Cap on SS tax

The rich need to pay the cap at 112,000 needs to be removed. Why should there be a cap. Make the wealthy pay their full share on their entire salary.

[aaronisu]

67. It's not a traditional tax

It's capped because it isn't a traditional tax. It's forced retirement savings (SS not the medicare portion). Your SS benefits are based on your lifetime earnings and the cap exists because there is a cap on benefits. It's possible to argue that rich people should pay more taxes because they get more from the government (at least I've heard it argued this way), but it's much harder to argue that rich people should pay more (than the cap) to SS when we know that they will not get more benefits. But then again, I am commenting on DU and am probably surrounded by people who believe that redistribution of wealth isn't the nasty thing that my republican friends think it is.

[Dkc05]

68. Why cap it at all or not tax dividends with it

It should be an uncapped taxe. Why cap it at all. Make SS safe for all of us to have and use in our golden years. It a promise we have been given so that we can retire with income.

[Deep13]

51. Well, the S.S. "holiday" ended. nt

[valerief]

52. This is a backdoor right wing post. nt

[My Good Babushka]

53. I understand where you are coming from

When you are just getting by every bit is a setback, even if it was a temporary break. I think a lot of people are being really rude and unsympathetic to those whom this tax adjustment is hurting. We can listen to the job creators vent until the end of time about how much they are all ass-aching about paying taxes, but working people can't say "boo". We're all glad that social security funding is back, but there were other ways to get it, like lifting the cap.

[GladRagDahl]

54. groan

It guess it had to be done because of the debt, but that doesn't make the extra $480 a month out of my budget any more pleasant to me or easier to manage as, like pretty much everyone else, money is tight. I already pay about $500/month on my parent loan for my kid's college and she still has another year to go.

[brooklynite]

60. If you have a chance to reply before you get tombstoned...

Perhaps you can share with us all your efforts to block spending by the Bush administrations (two wars, tax cuts for millionaires, unfunded Medicare Part D). At least Democrats believe in paying their bills.