Dear America: Your Higher Payroll Taxes Are Not The Result Of A Tax Increase!!

reply to post by GMan420


No, it's people attempting to argue semantics to distort reality.

6.2% before the temporary reduction
4.2% during the temporary reduction
6.2% after the reversal of the reduction

it's only an increase if you willfully ignore that this was a temporary reduction.

Maybe my math is fuzzy, someone should explain to me how 6.2% is an increase over 6.2%. I should have taken a finance course.

If you want to be mad, be upset over the blatant buying of votes. That's something tangible.

wow...so now Obama did this all by himself?...too bad we don't have a congress anymore...oh yeah i forgot, congress has republicans, and like everyone here on ATS knows, republicans are not to blame for any of this

Simply stated... There is more money coming out of my paycheck today than there was 1 month ago. The money coming out is the result of a tax that was not present last year. So how do you claim that it wasn't an increase? It didn't decrease - it didn't stay the same - so what did it do???

reply to post by thisguyrighthere

If I get a refund, it will only because I arranged to have them take more money out of my paycheck every week than they would otherwise with me not even claiming myself as a dependent. I only did that because I was sick of owing them money in april. that is when the property taxes, and whole lot of other taxes happen to come due for my area. what you call "income redistribution" I call money management!!!
whatever money I get back, is money that they took from me to begin with, you know what an over payment is, don't you??? If overpaid your electric bill by $100 would you expect them to give you that money back, or apply it to your next bill, or would you just write it off as their money??

I pretty much agree that this is a reduction in taxes that never should have happened in the first place. Social Security is solvent enough to be fixable if Congress quits spending the excesses and leaving the Soc Sec Admin with IOUs.

But, my paycheck was lighter than it was December 31st so it still feels like a tax hike. The nefarious part to this is that Social Security isn't taken out beyond around $105k of wages so this is a tax hike that affects the middle class and below entirely.

There is a part of me that ponders if the tax cut on SS was to pull forward the insolvency date to more closely match the time that Medicare and Medicaid reach theirs.

reply to post by phishyblankwaters


I agree the math is what im trying to get people to understand. Thanks for clarifying

reply to post by xstealth


I agree that our taxation is overzealous and full of earmarks that need to be simplified. I was just stateing the fact that many her on ATS are shouting hey, you raised the taxes when you said you wouldn't. Its not a tax increase. Its a return to the normal 6.2% that you were paying before the stimulus.

reply to post by Kadmiel


It only shows that when it comes to the hard working tax payer we are all screw regarding what Obama does or doesn't do for the people and his promises

What is so hard to understand, he have no problem repealing something that ease the worker in this nation, but do you see him doing anything to stop the QEs that the Fed is using to feed billions to wall street every month? when the QE was also a temporary relieve for the too big to fail, aka bailouts.

Is not help for the working class but leeching of our hard earned tax dollars, but I see how well he is going against the so call rich when he allows almost 100 billion dollars of supposedly temporarily relief to got into the hands of the crocks in wall street and that sum is increasing every so many months

How about that, is not comparison isn't it.

Anything to let Obama slide out from under any accountability!!!! The Chosen One could have easily proposed an extension of this Tax Holiday just like he did for the Bush Tax Cuts in 2010.

This tax INCREASE is all Obama!! He needed the money because he knew the tax the rich scheme would never make a dent or a difference. He needs money to spend!! Don't think for a moment that he as intentions to shore up Social Security!!!

His words are absolutely meaningless!!! Shame on those who believe them....

reply to post by phishyblankwaters

Ah, so chimes in the person NOT in the US, about US citizens being taxed more then they were last year.


I didn't know that Canadians had an 0bama election office set up that far north.

Good for you, defending the Tyrant NOT in charge of YOUR country.

Originally posted by jimmyx
wow...so now Obama did this all by himself?...too bad we don't have a congress anymore

...oh yeah i forgot, congress has republicans, and like everyone here on ATS knows, republicans are not to blame for any of this

Um, what bills were set forth, from the Republicans, that would have extended the Bush era tax cuts and I believe the SS tax as well?
Yet, was shot down by the Dems that control 2/3 of the Govt.

Just wondering.


Oh, I get it, you blame the Reps because they wouldn't totally cave in to the wants of the Tyrant 0bama.
Makes sense then.

Originally posted by phishyblankwaters
reply to post by GMan420

 

If you say that people can't call their taxes going back up an increase, then we can't logically call their originally going down a reduction, can we?? If the temporary decrease was a "reduction" then it goes to follow that when it expired, it caused an "increase".

Semantics.

It wasn't a "reduction" it was a "TEMPORARY REDUCTION" I'm not sure why that is so hard to grasp. It was a temporary reduction that would be reversed at the end of the temporary term. At the end of the term, it went back to it's original amount.

You can try to ignore the fact that it was temporary, but it just makes you look silly.

Let's say the grocery store has a sale. They reduce prices on an item. The price has DECREASED. When that item's price goes back up, the price INCREASED. Yes, it increased back to its original price point, but it DID increase.

Again, words have meanings. That is EXACTLY what "semantics" is. The study of "meaning".

Prices/taxes go down - for however long, for whatever reason - is a price/tax DECREASE. Prices/taxes go up - for whatever reason from whatever price point - is a price/tax INCREASE.

I understand (and so does everyone else) that the tax rate has INCREASED to its original point before the DECREASE. We're paying the same as we did before the DECREASE.

If anyone needs to stop playing "semantics" it's the people who claim this is not an "INCREASE" when, by the very definition of "INCREASE", it is.

reply to post by jibeho


you have to understand this is not a "TAX INCREASE" !!

reply to post by Kadmiel


You are hilarious with the word games.

Remember 2010?? Note the words used here regarding the TEMPORARY Bush Tax Cuts.... Just like the temporary Tax Holiday that Obama allowed to expire.

Had Congress not acted to address the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, all Americans would have seen a tax increase on January 1st. (The average tax increase per family, the White House said, would have been $3,000.) Mr. Obama, who had long opposed extending the Bush tax cuts for America's highest-earners, has argued he had no choice but to agree to GOP demands to do so in order to avoid a tax increase on the middle class.

www.cbsnews.com...

Obama wanted to avoid that tax increase then when our economy was slipping.... It is still slipping and yet he ushered in this INCREASE!!

Call it what you will.... if it helps you sleep better..

Originally posted by Kadmiel
reply to post by jibeho

 

you have to understand this is not a "TAX INCREASE" !!

Did the Payroll Tax go up or down?

reply to post by macman


Good luck getting a straight answer!!

The double standard is hard at play...

I think your perspective has a lot to do with whether you view it as a tax increase or not. How could someone who has recently entered the workforce, and never earned wages before the payroll tax reduction not view it as a Tax Increase?

Like I said earlier, this is a reduction that should have never been put in place to begin with, but my check is 2% lighter than it was December 31st 2012. It feels like a tax increase to me. The amount isn't going to break me, but it's one less tank of gas, one less evening at a restaurant, dropping premium channels from the TV, or other expenditure that isn't going into the economy. Multiply my situation by a couple of hundred million and that has the potential for real economic damage.

reply to post by phishyblankwaters and Kadmiel

Assume that I accept your view of the payroll tax changes and the words that should be applied to it. Forget wherever it has been in the past. We currently have 6.2% going to the government. There are a goodly number of other taxes we are subject to, as was pointed out by an earlier poster.

Given the state of the economy, are we being taxed too much? I think Americans would say yes. Is 6.2% too much? Maybe, maybe not, but the entire tax burden is excessive and this is one place it might be cut. Instead, it won't be and Obamacare taxes will begin, fiscal cliff taxes kick in shortly, and the only administration position is to borrow from future generations, and take more from this one.

Your use of the language may be correct, I personally think not, but that's not the point. If you're sprayed by a skunk, it doesn't much matter what you call it, you're in a mess and have to get rid of the stink.

Originally posted by Kadmiel

So to set the record straight in the year 2011 Obama and senete supported a bill to allow americans a bit of relief from the econmic pressures of the time.

However, They were not a PERM reduction. They were TEMPORARY.

So what you are saying is:
1. Obama and 2011 congress acknowledged that reducing taxes is good for the economy.
2. So then they decide that doing something good for the economy should only be temporary?

Yeah, thanks congress and Obama for the bone . How about you let me keep my bag and you keep the bone.

reply to post by macman


AND haters will keep on hatin.

You can try to spin it how you want, an increase is an increase, and not a tax.

Now, if it was taken to 8%, THAT would be an increase. A return to normality is not.

Funny how you all were not screaming how horrible Obama was when the temporary reduction was put into place.