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Excerpts from: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/541131/201007211841/The-Tax-Tsunami-On-The-Horizon.aspx

Fiscal Policy: Many voters are looking forward to 2011, hoping a new Congress will put the country back on the right track. But unless something’s done soon, the new year will also come with a raft of tax hikes — including a return of the death tax — that will be real killers.

Through the end of this year, the federal estate tax rate is zero — thanks to the package of broad-based tax cuts that President Bush pushed through to get the economy going earlier in the decade. But as of midnight Dec. 31, the death tax returns — at a rate of 55% on estates of $1 million or more. The effect this will have on hospital life-support systems is already a matter of conjecture.

The lowest bracket for the personal income tax, for instance, moves up 50% — to 15% from 10%. The next lowest bracket — 25% — will rise to 28%, and the old 28% bracket will be 31%. At the higher end, the 33% bracket is pushed to 36% and the 35% bracket becomes 39.6%.

The marriage penalty also makes a comeback, and the capital gains tax will jump 33% — to 20% from 15%. The tax on dividends will go all the way from 15% to 39.6% — a 164% increase.

Both the cap-gains and dividend taxes will go up further in 2013 as the health care reform adds a 3.8% Medicare levy for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and joint filers making more than $250,000. Other tax hikes include: halving the child tax credit to $500 from $1,000 and fixing the standard deduction for couples at the same level as it is for single filers.

But even more tax headaches lie ahead. This “second wave” of hikes, as Americans for Tax Reform puts it, are designed to pay for ObamaCare and include:

• The Medicine Cabinet Tax. Americans, says ATR, “will no longer be able to use health savings account, flexible spending account, or health reimbursement pretax dollars to purchase nonprescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin).”
• The HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike. “This provision of ObamaCare,” according to ATR, “increases the additional tax on nonmedical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10% to 20%, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10%.”
• Brand Name Drug Tax. Makers and importers of brand-name drugs will be liable for a tax of $2.5 billion in 2011. The tax goes to $3 billion a year from 2012 to 2016, then $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018. Beginning in 2019 it falls to $2.8 billion and stays there. And who pays the new drug tax? Patients, in the form of higher prices.
• Economic Substance Doctrine. ATR reports that “The IRS is now empowered to disallow perfectly legal tax deductions and maneuvers merely because it judges that the deduction or action lacks ‘economic substance.’”

A third and final (for now) wave, says ATR, consists of the alternative minimum tax’s widening net, tax hikes on employers and the loss of deductions for tuition:

• “Small businesses can normally expense (rather than slowly deduct, or ‘depreciate’) equipment purchases up to $250,000,” says ATR. “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.’”

• The deduction for tuition and fees will no longer be available and there will be limits placed on education tax credits. Teachers won’t be able to deduct their classroom expenses and employer-provided educational aid will be restricted. Thousands of families will no longer be allowed to deduct student loan interest.

Then there’s the tax on Americans who decline to buy health care insurance (the tax the administration initially said wasn’t a tax but now argues in court that it is) plus a 3.8% Medicare tax beginning in 2013 on profits made in real estate transactions by wealthier Americans.

Not all Americans may fully realize what’s in store come Jan. 1. But they should have a pretty good idea by the mid-term elections, and members of Congress might take note of our latest IBD/TIPP Poll (summarized above).

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Anyone who understood the issue knew the government healthcare WAS a tax from day one despite the lies from our President and Congress. Now, the truth comes out when they have to defend themselves in court. They can force us to buy healthcare under their power to TAX. Get’s pretty clear when all the B.S. is brushed aside.  Here’s a snippet from Neal Boortz:

http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/index.html

It seems to me that when Obama was pushing to pass ObamaCare, the Democrats denied the fact that requiring Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty was creating a new tax. Here’s a little refresher. This was an interview with George Stephanopoulos which took place in September of 2009. PrezBo said: “The — for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I’m not covering all the costs.” Now let’s flash to summer 2010 when ObamaCare is being challenged by more than 20 states in the courts. The Obama Administration needs and excuse for the law forcing people to buy health insurance, and they’ve found one. Now, suddenly, it’s a TAX! That’s tight, the health care mandate is actually a TAX and the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes” is all the authorization they need! Amazing how the tune changes when they are backed up against the wall and are forced to defend the law based on our Constitution and not Obama logic.

But that’s not all we are learning in the months following the passage of ObamaCare. This from the New York Times, “As the Obama administration begins to enact the new national health care law, the country’s biggest insurers are promoting affordable plans with reduced premiums that require participants to use a narrower selection of doctors or hospitals .. The tradeoff, they say, is that more Americans will be asked to pay higher prices for the privilege of choosing or keeping their own doctors if they are outside the new networks. That could come as a surprise to many who remember the repeated assurances from President Obama and other officials that consumers would retain a variety of health-care choices and that you would be able to keep your doctor if you wished to. Surprise? Not for anyone who knew the consequences of a system that limits competition and mandates participation. But then they probably don’t teach these concepts in government schools.

We’re still not through. How about ObamaCare’s effect on government agencies like the IRS. The IRS, you will remember, is expected to enforce these news laws and regulations. This from the Wall Street Journal, “National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, who operates inside the IRS, highlighted the agency’s new mission in her annual report to Congress last week .. She notes that the IRS is already ‘greatly taxed’–pun intended?–’by the additional role it is playing in delivering social benefits and programs to the American public,’ like tax credits for first-time homebuyers or purchasing electric cars. Yet with ObamaCare, the agency is now responsible for ‘the most extensive social benefit program the IRS has been asked to implement in recent history.’ And without ‘sufficient funding’ it won’t be able to discharge these new duties.” The IRS can’t handle the workload so the only option is more money. Taxpayers .. bend over!

Hey you filthy rich people earning over $200,000 a year .. did you know that ObamaCare has another hidden tax that you may not know about? Section 1402, “Unearned Income Medicare Contribution,” imposes a 3.8% tax on profits from the sale of real estate — residential or investment, but it is only levied on people earning over $200,000 a year. Fun stuff, isn’t it?

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