Backdoor Taxes to Hit Middle Class

I was cruising my blogroll, When I came across a piece by Ace over at Ace of Spades HQ. While President Obama promises to only tax "the wealthy", by letting Bush era tax cuts expire without renewing them he will create a "Stealth Tax Hike" on the middle class. Ace points out the story was on Reuters but is now gone.



Fortunately for now the story can be seen at Yahoo Canada.
Highlights:

In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year -- effectively a tax hike by stealth.

So without technically raising taxes, the Obama administration plans to increase tax revenue by allowing your tax rate to go up on its own. He can of course then claim he kept at least one promise.

So what does this mean to me and you at the end of 2010?

If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.

So there you have it. Obama is so good he can raise taxes without doing a thing. That must make him some sort of god in liberal tax and spend circles.