Households Face $3,446 Tax Increase From Fiscal Cliff

U.S. households are facing an average tax increase of $3,446 in 2013 if Congress doesn’t avert the so- called fiscal cliff, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center said in a study released today.

The top 1 percent of households face some of the largest tax increases in 2013 and would see their after-tax incomes fall by 10.5 percent if Congress does nothing. That would translate to an average tax increase of $120,537 for that group.

A typical middle-income household earning between about $40,000 and $60,000 would face a tax increase of about $2,000.

After the Nov. 6 election, Congress is scheduled to return to Washington to debate the automatic spending cuts and tax increases starting in January unless lawmakers act. For calendar year 2013, taxes would increase by $536 billion, or about 20 percent.
“This is a very large tax increase,” Donald Marron, the center’s director, told reporters in Washington today.

If Congress does nothing, tax rates on income, capital gains, dividends and estates would increase, and the alternative minimum tax would spread to 21.7 million households, up from 4 million this year.

The top statutory tax rate on ordinary income would reach 39.6 percent, up from 35 percent, and the top rate on capital gains would be 23.8 percent, up from 15 percent. A 2 percentage point payroll tax cut is set to expire at the end of 2012.

Expired Provisions

The estimated $536 billion tax increase doesn’t include provisions that expired at the end of 2011, including miscellaneous corporate tax breaks. The provision that prevents the alternative minimum tax from expanding also expired last year.

Lawmakers agree they should continue the income tax cuts for most households. Republicans want to keep all of the income and estate tax cuts for 2013 and begin overhauling the tax code. Democrats, including President Barack Obama, want to let most of the tax cuts lapse for the top 2 percent of households, or income exceeding $200,000 for individuals and income above $250,000 for married couples
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The political stalemate over what to do about those top rates has prevented agreement on everything else.

Each piece of the fiscal cliff has varying effects on people at different income levels. Low-income households have the most at stake in expiring expansions of the child tax credit and earned income tax credit. Middle-income households are affected most by the payroll tax and income tax.

Via: Newsmax

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Kirsten Powers: More Americans will be put in danger if the media doesn’t start challenging the White House on Libya

A few reporters have stepped up, of course. Eli Lake at Newsweek has done a bang-up job, CNN has stuck with the story all week, Tapper had a solid report last night about who knew what and when. But perhaps we’re asking too much from the media generally; there are, after all, Romney gaffes to be covered. And if there’s one thing that America wants and needs from its media right now, it’s more navel-gazing horse-race election dreck.

Not KP, though. Good lord, I think she’s gone rogue:

There are so many unanswered questions, not just about Libya, but also about Cairo. Who is it that Rice thinks “widely disseminated” this “movie”? Surely she can’t believe that the Egyptian Coptic Christian who made the video had the capacity or even desire to put it in the hands of the people who did the inciting. Also, has the administration noticed that the mob in Cairo, so spontaneously upset about the video, just happened to be carrying an Islamist flag to hoist over our embassy? On 9/11. What a massive coincidence.

Also, where did Rice get her very detailed information about the attack in Libya? She referred to the attackers as “a small handful of heavily armed mobsters” who merely took advantage of a growing protest over the video, a protest that now appears never to have occurred, as was reported three days before her appearances. The administration is careful to point out that Rice couched everything she said as being the best assessment at the time. Fine. But where did that assessment come from and how could it have been so wrong, especially when all signs pointed to a terrorist attack?

We know now that before the attacks on 9/11 that killed 3,000 Americans, more attention should have been paid to attacks against the U.S. overseas. These were warnings of what was to come. They say curiosity killed the cat. In this case, lack of curiosity on the part of the American media very well may kill more Americans.

In a different political environment, if Congress wasn’t back home campaigning for reelection and demands for answers from the top weren’t fated to be met with screeching about how the GOP is “politicizing terror” before the big vote, I think the House would already be moving towards holding hearings about what the White House knew. As it is, I wouldn’t expect them to pursue this even after election day; they’ll be consumed with hashing out a compromise on the Bush tax cuts and the sequester. This seems fated to end up off the public’s radar sooner rather than later. Like the man said, a bump in the road.

Here’s KP on Wednesday’s “Special Report” previewing her Newsweek op-ed today. Click the image to watch. Exit quotation from Mike Huckabee: “This White House has been discredited and its credibility, certainly the promises of transparency, have been completely decimated by their actions.”

Via: Hot Air

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