Need Help on Proposed Tax Changes, etc.

[monmouth]

Received this e-mail from a RWr, where do I look to respond? This is not an area I'm good at by any stretch. Thanks for any input from my brilliant DUrs.....





Proposed changes in taxes after 2008 General election: CAPITAL GAINS TAXMCCAIN15% (no change)OBAMA28%CLINTON24%How does this affect you? If you sell your home and make a profit, you willpay 28% of your gain on taxes. If you are heading toward retirement andwould like to down-size your home or move into a retirement community, 28%of the money you make from your home will go to taxes. This proposal willadversely affect the elderly who are counting on the income from their homesas part of their retirement income. DIVIDEND TAXMCCAIN15% (no change) OBAMA39.6%CLINTON39.6%How will this affect you? If you have any money invested in stock market,IRA, mutual funds, college funds, life insurance, retirement accounts, oranything that pays or reinvests dividends, you will now be paying nearly 40%of the money earned on taxes if Obama or Clinton become president. Theexperts predict that "Higher tax rates on dividends and capital gains wouldcrash the stock market yet do absolutely nothing to cut the deficit." INCOME TAXMCCAIN(no changes)Single making 30K - tax $4,500Single making 50K - tax $12,500Single making 75K - tax $18,750Married making 60K- tax $9,000Married making 75K - tax $18,750Married making 125K - tax $31,250OBAMA(reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts)Single making 30K - tax $8,400Single making 50K - tax $14,000Single making 75K - tax $23,250Married making 60K - tax $16,800Married making 75K - tax $21,000Married making 125K - tax $38,750CLINTON(reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts)Single making 30K - tax $8,400Single making 50K - tax $14,000Single making 75K - tax $23,250Married making 60K - tax $16,800Married making 75K - tax $21,000Married making 125K - tax $38,750How does this affect you? No explanation needed. This is pretty straightforward. INHERITANCE TAXMCCAIN0%(No change, Bush repealed this tax)OBAMAkeep the inheritance taxCLINTONkeep the inheritance taxHow does this affect you? Many families have lost businesses, farms andranches, and homes that have been in their families for generations becausethey could not afford the inheritance tax. Those willing their assets toloved ones will not only lose them to these taxes.NEW TAXES BEING PROPOSED BY BOTH CLINTON AND OBAMA* New government taxes proposed on homes that are more than 2400 square feet* New gasoline taxes (as if gas weren't high enough already)* New taxes on natural resources consumption (heating gas, water,electricity)* New taxes on retirement accountsand last but not least....* New taxes to pay for socialized medicine so we can receive the same levelof medical care as other third-world countries!!!



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[sandnsea]

1. More Propaganda to Keep the Rich, Rich

When you sell your home, you roll the profits over into the next home. That's how people are able to afford bigger homes over the years. There is a one-time exemption for home profits to satisfy the need of retired people to sell their homes.

Nobody should ever pay less tax on passive income than tax on the fruit of your labor. In fact, taxing labor used to be what this country abhorred.

There is a huge exemption for family businesses, over 99% of estates pay no federal estate tax.

Yes there will probably be some new taxes to invest in new technologies so we don't destroy the environment in the next ten years. Just like there have been taxes to pay for electricity, telephone, oil, and similar investments in the past.

And there will hopefully be some new program so that we will no longer be like third world countries when it comes to health care, and maybe we actually will be #1 at something for a change.

[monmouth]

2. Many thanks for your help. I actually understood what you wrote...lol.

[HereSince1628]

3. Much of this has been myth-busted and is available via googling

For example: Many small, family-owned farms and businesses must be liquidated to pay estate taxes.

http://www.cbpp.org/pubs/estatetax.htm

<Snip>

Reality: The number of small, family-owned farms and businesses that owe any estate tax is small — and shrinking rapidly.
Despite oft-repeated claims that the estate tax has dire consequences for family farms and small businesses, there is in fact very little evidence that it has an outsize impact on these groups. Indeed, the American Farm Bureau Federation acknowledged to the New York Times that it could not cite a single example of a farm having to be sold to pay estate taxes.

Most recently, an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office confirmed that exceedingly few family farms and small businesses face the estate tax (http://www.cbpp.org/7-11-05tax.htm and http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/65xx/doc6512/07-06-EstateTax.pdf). The CBO report found that if the current exemption level of $2.0 million had been in place in 2000, only 123 farm estates and only 135 family-owned businesses nationwide would have owed any estate tax. The number of taxable farm estates drops to 65 nationwide at a $3.5 million exemption level, the level that takes effect in 2009. The number of taxable family-owned business estates falls to just 94 under the $3.5 million exemption.

<snip>

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Some people see no redeeming value returned from the taxes they pay. The number in this category is large and a person might be able to argue with them to show them value where they have seen none.

On the otherhand, some people won't let themselves see any redeeming value returned from the taxes they pay. These people are economic sociopaths who will never be satisfied so long as they are asked to pay any taxes. There is no arguing with them. Rather they harangue us to join their stingy campaign with false appeals to our sense of justice.

[monmouth]

4. Many thanks for your post. Was not even sure when I googled what

to search for.

[MH1]

5. Income Tax: I'd like to see the source of those numbers.

Obama has said he will lower taxes for lower income people, and not raise them on "the middle class" (which is amorphously defined because many pundits seem to think $250K is "middle class" :eyes:).

Obama has repeatedly stated very specifically that his proposal includes that seniors with income less than 50K will not pay any tax at all. (or was that on their social security income? He was specific, unfortunately my memory isn't so hot.) I don't see how the average overall tax of that income bracket could go up if this provision is adopted.

Obviously to attain some semblance of fiscal discipline without deactivating the military and shutting down a swath of social programs, Obama would have to pay for these tax cuts to the lower n % with tax increases in other areas. That's what progressive taxation is about.

The purveyor of the stuff in your op is just trying to convince average folk that Obama's policies would be bad for them, when they generally would not be.