And folks wonder why the economy remains stalled ? We have an anti-business president, wild-eyed wasteful spending and people staring down at 2011 taxes...

========================================

http://www.atr.org/six-months-untilbr-largest-tax-hikes-a5171#


Six Months to Go Until
The Largest Tax Hikes in History
From Ryan Ellis on Thursday, July 1, 2010 4:15 PM

In just six months, the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect. They will hit families and small businesses in three great waves on January 1, 2011:

First Wave: Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief

In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for investors, small business owners, and families. These will all expire on January 1, 2011:

Personal income tax rates will rise. The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed). The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent. All the rates in between will also rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates. The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:

- The 10% bracket rises to an expanded 15%
- The 25% bracket rises to 28%
- The 28% bracket rises to 31%
- The 33% bracket rises to 36%
- The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%

Higher taxes on marriage and family. The marriage penalty (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of income. The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child. The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level. The dependent care and adoption tax credits will be cut.

The return of the Death Tax. This year, there is no death tax. For those dying on or after January 1 2011, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million. A person leaving behind two homes and a retirement account could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones.

Higher tax rates on savers and investors. The capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 20 percent in 2011. The dividends tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 39.6 percent in 2011. These rates will rise another 3.8 percent in 2013.

Second Wave: Obamacare

There are over twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare. Several will first go into effect on January 1, 2011. They include:

The Medicine Cabinet Tax Thanks to Obamacare, Americans will no longer be able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin).

The Special Needs Kids Tax This provision of Obamacare imposes a cap on flexible spending accounts (FSAs) of $2500 (Currently, there is no federal government limit). 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 thousands of 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.


The HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike. This provision of Obamacare increases the additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent.

Third Wave: The Alternative Minimum Tax and Employer Tax Hikes

When Americans prepare to file their tax returns in January of 2011, theyll be in for a nasty surprisethe AMT wont be held harmless, and many tax relief provisions will have expired. The major items include:

The AMT will ensnare over 28 million families, up from 4 million last year. According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, Congress failure to index the AMT will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying familiesrising from 4 million last year to 28.5 million. These families will have to calculate their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level. The AMT was created in 1969 to ensnare a handful of taxpayers.

Small business expensing will be slashed and 50% expensing will disappear. Small businesses can normally expense (rather than slowly-deduct, or depreciate) equipment purchases up to $250,000. This will be cut all the way down to $25,000. Larger businesses can expense half of their purchases of equipment. In January of 2011, all of it will have to be depreciated.

Taxes will be raised on all types of businesses. There are literally scores of tax hikes on business that will take place. The biggest is the loss of the research and experimentation tax credit, but there are many, many others. Combining high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost jobs.

Tax Benefits for Education and Teaching Reduced. The deduction for tuition and fees will not be available. Tax credits for education will be limited. Teachers will no longer be able to deduct classroom expenses. Coverdell Education Savings Accounts will be cut. Employer-provided educational assistance is curtailed. The student loan interest deduction will be disallowed for hundreds of thousands of families.

Charitable Contributions from IRAs no longer allowed. Under current law, a retired person with an IRA can contribute up to $100,000 per year directly to a charity from their IRA. This contribution also counts toward an annual required minimum distribution. This ability will no longer be there.

PDF Version



Read more: http://www.atr.org/six-months-untilbr-largest-tax-hikes-a5171##ixzz0sVn3DCMe

--- PCBoard (R) v15.3/M 10
* Origin: (1:226/600)

Is there a Democrat politician anywhere that is properly paying their
taxes ?

========================================

http://www.rollcall.com/news/43910-1.html

Levin Repays Property Tax Credit
By Jennifer Yachnin
Roll Call Staff
March 5, 2010, 8:49 p.m.

Newly anointed House Ways and Means Chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.)
repaid a Maryland property-tax credit Friday that he should not have
received, his office confirmed.

Levin, who owns a home in Chevy Chase, Md., received a $690 credit on
his most recent property tax bill, the result of Montgomery County
program that provided one-time credits to residential property owners in
the 2009-10 tax year.

Levin, who purchased the home in 1977, received the tax credit although
it was intended for only ôowner-occupiedö properties, and he does not
live in the home. The credit reduced his tax bill to just under $9,500.

ôThis is not a tax credit that Rep. Levin applied for and in an
abundance of caution he has paid the full amount to Montgomery County to correct their mistake,ö Levin Chief of Staff Hilarie Chambers wrote in
an e-mail Friday.

Chambers said the Michigan lawmaker moved out of the home in September
2008, following the death of his wife. His daughter and her family now
occupy the home, and he stays at a Silver Spring condominium owned by
his daughter when he is in the Washington, D.C. area.

Levin repaid the credit Friday, Chambers said, after being contacted by
Roll Call.

ôSince Mr. Levin was not residing in the property for the full year and
it is not his æprincipal residence,Æ Mr. Levin has written a check of
$690 to the County and clarified and confirmed once again to them that
the correct classification of the Morgan Drive property is æNot a
Principal Residence,Æö Chambers wrote in an e-mail.

Chambers referred to public records maintained by Montgomery County,
which indicate the Chevy Chase home is a principal residence. Property
records available from a Maryland state Web site indicate the property
is not used as a principal residence.

Montgomery County property tax records dating to 1999 show that LevinÆs
home has changed classifications ù principal or not principal ù four
times.

Chambers said the property was designated as a principal residence in
2009, after LevinÆs attorneys submitted a revised deed to the county.

ôIt appears that when Mr. LevinÆs lawyers submitted a deed to the County
in April 9, 2009 that removed Mrs. LevinÆs name from the deed and
transferred Mrs. LevinÆs share into a trust the County mistakenly
changed the record on the property to æprincipalÆ residence without
request from or notification to Mr. Levin,ö Chambers wrote.

She also said that a change-of-address form Levin submitted after he
moved to the Silver Spring condo prompted another change to ônot a
principal residenceö in January 2010.

The Chevy Chase home has also received negligible homestead tax credits intended for permanent residents of the state at times during the past
10 years.

Chambers said that Levin repaid homestead taxes several years ago.

ôThe County has inconsistently classified the property on Morgan Drive,ö
she wrote. ôIn April 2006 when Mr. Levin learned of the earlier mis- classifications he repaid the full amount for the Homestead Tax Credit mistakenly applied to the property. We confirmed [Friday] with the
Montgomery County Department of Finance the amount repaid was $531.51.ö

Levin replaced Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) at the Ways and Means
Committee helm this week after pending ethics investigations forced
Rangel to step down from the post.

The ethics committee admonished Rangel in February for taking part in
two trips to the Caribbean that violated House rules, citing his staffÆs knowledge that the trips received prohibited corporate funding.

The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, commonly known as the
ethics panel, is also still reviewing RangelÆs personal finances under
an investigation opened in September 2008.

That review includes RangelÆs failure to report rental income from a
Dominican beach house; his lease of three rent-controlled apartments in
his district; his use of House parking facilities for long-term vehicle storage; personal assets he failed to report on financial disclosures;
and his fundraising efforts for a City College of New York facility
named in his honor. Rangel has denied any wrongdoing.

Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), the second-ranking Ways and Means Committee
member who was passed over for the chairmanship, also recently faced an
ethics committee review of his Maryland home.

The committee dismissed allegations that Stark had improperly received a Maryland homestead property tax break.

The Office of Congressional Ethics, which recommended the Stark probe to
the ethics committee, also reviewed several other lawmakers who own
Maryland homes and had received the same tax break, but did not forward
the inquiries to the ethics panel.

A handful of lawmakers also repaid taxes to the District of Columbia in
2009 after Roll Call discovered those Members had nearly $100,000
combined in homestead tax breaks for which they were ineligible.
District official attributed the discrepancy to a clerical error, and
said the Members had not sought the tax breaks.

CMPQwk 1.42-21 9999
Democrats -- The party responsible for the housing meltdown ....

--- PCBoard (R) v15.3/M 10
* Origin: (1:226/600)