Wow. I thought I was pretty good at digging out the double-speak and hypocrisy in the Republican tax proposals, but they have exceeded my wildest imagination. This morning in my newspaper, there was an article entitled, "How two proposed tax plans could play out". It reported on two proposals by the President's Advisory Committee on Federal Tax Reform, which is the subject of this thread. The two plans analyzed are: Simplified Income Tax Plan, and Growth and Investment Plan. The analysis was done by RIA's Practical Tax Strategies, a professional tax journal according to the article.
I won't type all of the article, but here is a brief summary:
Single, no children, $30K wages, $3K contribution to IRA, standard deduction:
Current tax: $2,455
Simplified: $2,850
Growth: $2,850
Married, no children, $150K combined income, $1K dividends, $1K interest, $5K long-term capital gains, miscellaneous typical deductions:
Current: $15,406
Simplified: $23,643
Growth: $24,321
Teacher, lawyer, married, 2 children, $150K combined income, various investment income and deductions:
Current:$21,568
Simplified: $21,843
Growth: $22,521
Executive, non-working spouse, $500K income, $10K interest, $20K dividends, $200K captial gains, typical deductions for this range:
Current: $155,645
Simplified: $142,748
Growth: $151,140
Lawyer, divorced, no children, $250K wages, $150K interest, $500K captial gains, various deductions:
Current: $179,174
Simplified: $142,683
Growth: $163,350
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My conclusions: These proposals must have been written by a bunch of divorced lawyers. As usual, there is no tax break until one gets into serious income. In fact, even for professionals earning $150,000 per year, and everyone below that level who pays taxes, there is an increase, with the young couple with no kids paying a huge 50% increase!
My long term conclusion (same as it has been for umpty-ump years): why on earth would anyone with less than a $500K income support the Republicans? It makes absolutely no sense unless you value something like "prayer in school" (which will never happen) more than you do your family's economic well-being. Can't you see that the rich fat-cats are just USING you? They don't really give a darn about your so-called moral values; they just use that as a tactic to keep you in line while they get richer. Always been that way; always will.