November 2, 2008
5 Truths Of The Obama Tax Plan
According to unconfirmed sources, Barack Obama is being smeared by baseless claims that he would dramatically raise marginal tax rates to levels not seen since the 1970s or impose new taxes on everything from your child’s education fund to your water.
These accusations have no basis in truth and, according to Obama supporters, are repeatedly debunked. Here are some key facts about the plan to set the record straight:
1) The Obama Plan Provides Generous Tax Cuts for Almost All American Families
The Obama plan will the typical family will pay tax rates that are 20% lower than they faced under President Reagan. Any and all charges that Obama would raise rates on capital gains, dividends, income, savings and so on for the approximately 98% of American families making less than $250,000 are simply not true.
2) The Obama Plan Would Cut Taxes For Middle Class Families By Three Times More Than Senator McCain’s Plan.
In recent weeks, the McCain campaign has repeatedly suggested that Obama voted to increase taxes on families making $42,000 per year. Factcheck.org declared this claim “simply false,” and the Washington Post Editorial Board determined that this claim was “unacceptably misleading.”
3) Under the Obama Plan, No One Will Pay Higher Tax Rates Than They Paid in The 1990s
Barack Obama believes that any responsible candidate must put forward specific ideas of how they would pay for their proposals to put us back onto the path of fiscal responsibility. That is why he has called for repealing a portion of the tax cuts passed in the last eight years for families making over $250,000. But he would limit all rates to be at or below what they were in the 1990s. Families making over $250,000 would pay the 1990s marginal income tax rates – of 39.6 and 36 percent – and capital gains and dividend tax rates of 20%. Obama’s 20 % capital gains rate is the lowest rate from the 1990s, and his 20% dividends rate is 39 percent lower than the rate President Bush proposed in 2001, and lower than all but 5 of the last 92 years we have been taxing dividends.
4) Obama Would Lower Taxes For the Vast Majority of Small Businesses
This is false because the Obama plan preserves existing tax rates for families making less than $250,000 a year, nearly 99 % of small business owners won’t see any tax increase under the Obama plan. Instead, these small firms and business owners are likely to get a tax cut under the Obama plan, which eliminates capital gains taxes for small businesses, provides a new 50% tax credit for healthcare, and helps lower health care costs to make small businesses competitive.
5) Obama Will Provide New Tax Benefits to Help Families Save and Create Wealth
The notion that Obama will raise taxes on families’ assets like their “homes” or “life savings” is absurd. In radio and TV ads, the McCain campaign has alleged that Barack Obama would increase taxes on “your life savings” or the “sale of your home”—bedrock assets for ordinary Americans. But in fact, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will repeal the estate tax for 99.7% of estates, offer a new universal mortgage tax credit to help working families achieve homeownership, and will offer a new, fully refundable 50% credit on the first $1,000 of retirement savings done by American families. Factcheck.org called these McCain attacks “simply not true for the vast majority of viewers who will see [them]” while the Washington Post called them “dishonest.”
Filed under Taxes by
October 31, 2008
Obama and McCain Tax Plans Explained
According to the Washington Post, new analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain are both proposing tax plans that would result in cuts for most American families. Obama’s plan gives the biggest cuts to those who make the least, while McCain would give the largest cuts to the very wealthy. For the approximately 147,000 families that make up the top 0.1 percent of the income scale, the difference between the two plans is stark. While McCain offers a $269,364 tax cut, Obama would raise their taxes, on average, by $701,885 - a difference of nearly $1 million.
Here is your tax savings based on your annual earnings:
| If you make… | Under McCain | Under Obama | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Over $2.87 mil | -4.4% | $270,000 | +11.5% | +702,000 |
| $603,000 to $2.87 mil | -3.4% | $ 45,000 | + 8.7% | +116,000 |
| $227,000 to $603,000 | -3.1% | $ 7,900 | 0.0% | -$ 12 |
| $160,000 to $227,000 | -3.0% | $ 4,380 | - 1.9% | -$ 2,790 |
| $111,650 to $160,000 | -2.5% | $ 2,615 | - 2.1% | -$ 2,205 |
| $ 66,355 to $111,650 | - 1.4% | $ 1,010 | - 1.8% | -$ 1,290 |
| $ 37,595 to $ 66,355 | - 0.7% | $ 319 | - 2.4% | -$ 1,040 |
| $ 18,980 to $ 37,595 | - 0.5% | $ 113 | - 3.6% | -$ 892 |
| up to $18,980 | - 0.2% | $ 19 | - 5.5% | -$ 567 |
| Average cut | - 2.0% | $ 1,195 | - 0.3% | -$ 160 |
*the numbers have been rounded
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