Tax Increases as % of Income #5 – New Hampshire $5 ,660 5.81% If Fiscal Cliff agreement not reached

Sandy-Ravaged New Jersey Families Face $6,933 Tax Hike in Fiscal Cliff Stalemate

By Christopher Goins

November 21, 2012

 http://tinyurl.com/cfl6g5z    

President Barack Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R). (AP)

(CNSNews.com) – Families in Hurricane Sandy-ravaged New Jersey will face the highest tax increase as a percentage of their income – 6.82%  or about $6,933 more in taxes -- if Congress does not reach an agreement on the fiscal cliff tax issues during the lame-duck session, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation.

In its study of how the fiscal cliff would affect typical families in each state, the Tax Foundation reports that if the numerous tax provisions that are due to expire on Dec. 31 are not changed, a four-person family in New Jersey with a median income of $101,682 will see its taxes go up at a rate 6.82 percent of its income, which translates into about $6,933.

The tax issues in question are the expiration of the Bush tax rates, which also include the elimination of the 10 percent tax bracket and the reduced deduction for married filers; ending the 2 percent cut to employee-side Social Security taxes; and the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Maryland was ranked second by the Tax Foundation because a four-person family there, with a median income of $106,707, would see its taxes go up 6.74 percent as a percentage of income, or about $7,194.

Connecticut, ranked third, would see taxes for a family of four go up by 6.62 percent, or $6,653.

All five states with the top tax increases are “blue states,” which President Obama won in the 2012 presidential election. But so are four out of the bottom five states with the exception of Kansas.

Top Five Tax Increases Tax Increases as % of Income

#1 – New Jersey $6,933                                6.82%

#2 – Maryland    $7,194                                 6.74%

#3 – Connecticut $6,653                                6.62%

#4 – Massachusetts $6,632                           6.53%

#5 – New Hampshire $5,660                          5.81%

Forty states would see tax increases between $3,000 and $3,999. Six states would see an increase between $4,000 and $4,999 and three would see increases between $6,000 and $6,999.

New Hampshire would be the only state to see a tax increase between $5,000 and $5,999 and Maryland would be the only state to see a tax increase over $7,000.

Bottom Five Tax Increases Tax Increases as % of Income

#50 – Washington $3,362                                4.12%

#49 – Hawaii    $3,453                                    4.16%

#48 – Colorado $3,646                                    4.29%

#47 – Kansas $3,227                                      4.31%

#46 – Illinois $3,417                                        4.32%

The potential for tax increases on millions of U.S. taxpayers is still possible, the Tax Foundation explains, and would be especially devastating for lower-income families because of the changes to the child tax credit; the elimination of the 10 percent bracket, which would go back to 15 percent; and the reduced standard deduction for married filers -- all of which are provisions in the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts.

http://tinyurl.com/cfl6g5z

GGW - Land of the Freebies, Home of the Enslaved!

Here is another of the Government Gone Wild videos.

How close are we to the tipping point where the only way out of the socialist/communist model for our country will be via revolution.

Basically it will come down to the suburban and rural areas pitted against the urbanites!

NH House Leaders Comment on Increasing the Threshold for BET

CONCORD – House Speaker William O’Brien (R-Mont Vernon) and House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt (R-Salem) today commented on the passage of House Bill 1418, which would increase the business enterprise tax (BET) threshold from $150,000 to $200,000 and the enterprise value tax base from $75,000 to $100,000. HB 1418 passed on a voice vote.

House Speaker William O’Brien

“The business enterprise tax, which is a payroll tax, is a tax on job creation and House Bill 1418 is about providing relief to our employers. With this bill, the House seeks to give our employers another reason to feel the confidence to expand and create jobs in this economy. Based upon pro-business Republican reforms, 10,000 more New Hampshire residents are working than when the voters elected Republicans to take over the Legislature. This is how businesses respond to state government and its legislature that are partners, not adversaries, and the House will continue to prioritize pro-economic, pro-jobs legislation such as this.”

House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt

“After over 100 new taxes and fees by the Democrats, it is no surprise that businesses were afraid to hire new workers. This bill is one more example of the steps that House Republicans are taking to create jobs here. This is a meaningful measure to send a clear message that New Hampshire is open for business.”

Bettencourt Comments on Senate Changes to CACR6

CONCORD - House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt (R-Salem) today offered the following comments on the New Hampshire Senate's changes to CACR6:

"Simply put, the Senate's amendment to CACR6 makes it easier for your taxes to be increased. The House version of CACR6  places necessary hurdles to tax and fee increases in the form of a three-fifths majority vote. We've seen in other states that spending caps simply create a ceiling that state spending rises to.

The Senate’s decision to amend CACR6 has not only jeopardized the House’s ability to pass a constitutional amendment on education funding, but also any hopes of expanded gaming’s passage in the House. CACR6, as it passed the House, was Republicans assurance that we could not only continue to grow jobs and expand our economy by having a low tax environment here in  New Hampshire, but also gave us the confidence that gaming revenues would not be used to simply grow big government. We see no support in the House for the Senate changes to CACR6. The importance of CACR6 to a broad spectrum of Republicans in the House cannot be overstated and as a result this may compromise our ability to garner the necessary support for the Senate version of CACR12."

NATIONAL REVIEW: editorial pins Supercommittee failure on Dem tax donkey

The text of the editorial follows. It can be found on the National Review website at http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/283743/marines-over-medicaid-editors.

Marines Over Medicaid

To the great surprise of nobody, another blue-ribbon panel of Washington’s A-list nabobs has failed at its task: In this case, it is the so-called supercommittee charged with nudging the federal government away from the edge of the debt abyss. Investors despaired at the news, and there was talk of a second downgrade of U.S. Treasury debt.

The failure of the supercommittee is a testament to Democrats’ tax obsession. With the supercommittee having fizzled, the next step is the automatic sequestration process, which imposes 50 percent of the cuts on a program that accounts for only 20 percent of spending (national defense) while leaving the entitlements largely untouched. But the country needs the Marines more than it needs Medicaid.

The talks broke down because Democrats demanded $1 trillion in tax increases as the price of doing any deal that included entitlement savings — which is to say, as the price of doing any deal that begins to address the major drivers of spending going forward. Republicans have never quite owned up to being open to a tax increase, but that is what they are talking about when they talk about “pro-growth tax reform,” which includes broadening the tax base and eliminating some deductions and exemptions, producing a net tax increase even if tax rates stay the same or go down. But even that isn’t good enough for the Democrats, who insist that any tax increase be enacted through a relatively narrow range of options, mostly through raising tax rates on individuals with above-average incomes and on businesses that do not fall within the protective circle of Democrats’ political favoritism. (Don’t expect General Electric or the next Solyndra to start paying 35 percent, whatever else happens.) Because Republicans rightly declined to go along with this class-warfare program and insisted upon savings in entitlements, the supercommittee failed.

The sobering thing is that even the massive tax increases the Democrats wish to inflict upon the nation would not close the deficit that our entitlement programs will produce if left unreformed. A study by the International Monetary Fund estimates that, in order to keep entitlement spending at current levels while stabilizing the debt, every federal tax on the books — income tax, payroll taxes, excise taxes, etc. — would have to be raised by 88 percent. Democrats will be happy to run against entitlement reform, and they will wallpaper the airwaves with vulgar advertisements that show Paul Ryan running granny off a cliff in her wheelchair. But they are really running on an 88 percent tax hike — that or massive, unsustainable deficits.

Voters are beginning to understand as much, and that means that Republicans have a two-fold task ahead of them: The first is to overturn the automatic defense-spending cuts, locating savings elsewhere in the federal budget to offset them. Unlike most of what the federal government does, national defense is a real, pressing, national priority that is unquestionably a government responsibility. The range of threats facing the United States is broad and deep, and a single 9/11-scale attack could in financial terms alone cost the nation far more than we would save through defense cutbacks, to say nothing of the loss of life. Defense is one of the few federal functions in which budgetary concerns must perforce take a backseat to global political realities.

The same is not true of the entitlement programs, and so the second part of the Republicans’ task is to take that case to the voters in November. Most of the Republican presidential hopefuls have developed thoughtful, credible, long-term solutions to the financial imbalances of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The reforms they are proposing — means testing, gradually raising the retirement age, changing the indexing formulae — are far short of the radical changes that have been contemplated by some on the right. But properly executed they would bring the programs back into balance, a goal that is of critical importance as our population ages and the financial stress on the entitlements becomes more acute. Changing the terms of Social Security for a well-off 35-year-old decades away from collecting any benefits is not relegating granny to a cat-food diet, and Republicans should be willing to make that case.  

Meanwhile, another opportunity to control spending and rationalize the tax code has come and gone. Our supply of such opportunities is not unlimited.