13 October, 2008

Down to brass tacks

Or more to the point, tax.

I recently received an email that provided a comparison of the taxation proposals for the two major presidential candidates. I found this information to be quite nauseating enlightening, but these days there's no telling where the information being passed around in emails might have come from. I'm sure Snopes is getting a real workout.

Anyway, I checked out The Tax Foundation – that's the folks who bring us the annual calculation of Tax Freedom Day – and found their handy Presidential Candidate Tax Plan Comparison.

I encourage you, dear reader, to check it out. Preferably on an empty stomach.

2 comments:

Doozie said...

This in particular makes no sense to me:

Social Security tax would be 12.4% for income from zero to $102,000; 0% for income from $102,000 to $250,000; and 4% from $250,000 and up, effective 2018

Actually a lot of that stuff made no sense for both of the people I compared. Of course, the one thing that did stand out was the typical republican agenda to reduce or eliminate taxes for the corporations and the rich.

I abhor politics.

Foo said...

@doozie: Basically, this means that all of our income from $0 to $102K is taxed at 6.2% (with your employer matching another 6.2%). So, if you make $102K, then you pay $6,324 in Social Security tax.

Now. The rest of it goes like this: there would be 0% additional tax levied for that portion of your (certainly not my) income between $102K and $250K. However, under Barack Obama's plan, anything you earn above $250K would be taxed at 4%. So someone earning $260K would pay 6.2% on the first $102K ($6,324), plus an additional 4% on the $10K over $250K ($400) for a total of $6,724.

At least, I think that's how it works – and none of this takes into account Medicare taxes, of course.

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