Of the twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare, below are the five worst that will be foisted upon Americans for the first time on January 1, 2013:
The Obamacare Medical Device Tax – a $20 billion tax increase: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will increase the cost of your health care – making everything from pacemakers to prosthetics more expensive.
The Obamacare “Special Needs Kids Tax” – a $13 billion tax increase: The 30-35 million Americans who use a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs will face a new government cap of $2,500 (currently the accounts are unlimited under federal law, though employers are allowed to set a cap).
There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are several million families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This Obamacare tax provision will limit the options available to these families.
The Obamacare Surtax on Investment Income – a $123 billion tax increase: This is a new, 3.8 percentage point surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This would result in the following top tax rates on investment income:
The Obamacare “Haircut” for Medical Itemized Deductions – a $15.2 billion tax increase: Currently, those Americans facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). This tax increase imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. By limiting this deduction, Obamacare widens the net of taxable income for the sickest Americans. This tax provision will most harm near retirees and those with modest incomes but high medical bills.
The Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Hike -- an $86.8 billion tax increase: The Medicare payroll tax is currently 2.9 percent on all wages and self-employment profits. Under this tax hike, wages and profits exceeding $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of married couples) will face a 3.8 percent rate instead. This is a direct marginal income tax hike on small business owners, who are liable for self-employment tax in most cases. The table below compares current law vs. the Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Hike:
Changes to FSA accounts will affect me directly. I have always placed at least $5K in my FSA and have needed every last penny of it. Now, it looks like I'll have to limit that to $2.5K and get taxed on the other $2.5K that I would normally keep in my FSA.
Seems like all we're doing is making it more difficult for people to survive on their net incomes and becoming more dependent on government assistance. At some point, where does the money come from?
EVERY (no hyperbole) ultra successful business owner I know intends to slow down their businesses to a no-growth or even reversal (decrease in size) in the event of an Obama re-election.. which they all assume will happen. They are 'terrified' of the ramifications.
I'm not going to argue the point here (I get more than I want of the conversation in the real world).. just sharing.
Are we ready for a single payer system yet? Are we ready to stop handing out billions to Egypt, Iraq, and Afghanistan yet?
Keep the taxes coming! Maybe then and only then will folks here finally DEMAND that we focus on our own country rather than repub charity of handouts to the ME, Asia, Europe, S. America, and so many bomb and jet makers.
Lets get out of the business of spreading Democracy and playing policeman to everybody and their dog and concentrate on America for a change.
I am convinced that had we actually been forced to fund for Iraq upfront rather than just slide the credit card and pass the costs onto our children and grandchildren we would have actually waited for REAL solid WMD evidence before invading. Once this country actually values money and is concerned over debt (because they feel it via taxes rather than just some cute trillion dollar number that flashes onto the TV screen on the news) then we'll finally adjust our living. All of a sudden our military we become smaller and more efficient, government will become more efficient, foreign policy will become more frugal and efficient, and we'll actually care about what programs we fund and do not fun.
Instead, for decades (with the greatest increases coming under Reagan and then Bush) we've given the Dept of Defense, poor people, rich people, foreign people, ME countries, everyone and their dogs blank checks with "promises" that we'll pay for this crap later. I say, it stops now. If we cannot pay for x, then get rid of it. If we cannot pay to bribe Egypt, then do away with it. If we cannot pay to keep up the Hill, then get rid of it. Let those folks join the "free market" and get jobs at Delta. If they cannot find jobs, then go back to school or start your own businesses. Stop living off the government.
Umm, you do realize that Obama has increased the deficit more in 4 years than Bush did in 8, don't you?
Rex Nutting of MarketWatch, which is owned by the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch, shows that growth in federal spending under President Obama has been considerably lower than under Bush. In fact, the growth in federal spending under Obama and Clinton has been far lower than it was under every Republican president since Reagan.
Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s.
Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.
^^^ It's a safe assumption that you don't think Obama will stop the ridiculous pace of spending, right?
Obama already has. Look at the rate of increase under Obama compared to Previous repub Presidents.
If repubs were really so concerned over the deficit, why were they silent for 8 years? Why did they suddenly become vocal when a black Democrat gained the white house?
Now let's see a graph that makes allowances for past presidents as well.
I mean, if we're going to look at a graph that conveniently omits dollars related to the stimulus spending, then why not play what-ifsies with the others?
Also, do you believe that had Obama NOT spent the trillions on the stimulus, that he would have hung tough with th other spending? Of course not.
The graph is flawed on its face and worthless.
All of the yearly changes under Obama are well below the 7 percent average annual increase under Bush prior to fiscal 2009. And in that year — for which we assign most of the increase to Bush — the rise amounted to a staggering 17.9 percent.
So if current spending is an “inferno,” it’s one that Bush (and Congress) is mostly responsible for starting
Ordinarily, an incoming president has little or no influence over spending that was approved under his predecessor. So in normal circumstances, all spending for fiscal year 2009 would have been rightly tied to Bush
But note also that receipts are running at levels that are well below historical averages. It is the combination of historically high spending and low revenues that is producing the current string of trillion-dollar annual deficits, and piling up debt. Those who blame deficits solely on spending ignore the other side of the ledger.