Here’s how the email begins:
Proposed changes in taxes after 2008 General election:
CAPITAL GAINS TAX
MCCAIN 15% (no change)
OBAMA 28%
CLINTON 24%
Fair and reasonable people hate it when those with political agendas to shill post their fabrications without ever providing a single reference – just like this email does. But then again, it’s impossible to cite a source when all you’re spewing are lies.
So let’s take a look at the facts:
Sen. Obama, in consultation with Warren Buffett (you’ve heard of him – the "Oracle of Omaha" who jockeys back and forth with Microsoft’s Bill Gates as the "Richest Person in America"), is on record stating he believes it will be in the low 20% range – not 28% as they would have us try to swallow.
But not only did Sen. Obama say he would only "adjust the top dividends and capital gains rate to something closer to — but no greater than — the rates Ronald Reagan set in 1986" (you Republicans surely remember him) – he even goes further in proposing that there will be no – as in ZERO – capital gains on start-up companies, as he believes they will help jump-start our economy. An economy that Bush has now pushed into a free-fall recession courtesy of his tax breaks for the super-duper wealthy, combined with the cost of paying for Bush and McSame’s Hundred Years War in Iraq.
A source? Of course:
http://www.politifact.com/...
http://www.nytimes.com/...
http://www.politico.com/...
http://www.infoplease.com/...
How does this affect you?
If you sell your home and make a profit, you will pay 28% of your gain on taxes. If you are heading toward retirement and would like to down-size your home or move into a retirement community, 28% of the money you make from your home will go to taxes. This proposal will adversely affect the elderly who are counting on the income from their homes as part of their retirement income.
Wow! Now you would think that including this whopper in your email would surely embarrass anyone trying to convince folks. But, hey – after 8 years of the Bush/Cheney lies, what’s a few more?
OK – we’ll skip the already documented lie of the "28%" and just focus on the facts here.
Single people selling a home that they’ve owned and lived in for 2 of the last 5 years are allowed a $250,000 capital gains exclusion. Than means they pay ZERO – zip, zilch, nix, nil, none, nada, naught, the null set, cipher, a goose egg ... 0 – taxes on that sale.
And for married folks with the same 2 of 5 years proviso – they’re allowed a $500,000.00 capital gains exclusion ... and they also pay ZERO – zip, zilch, nix, nil, none, nada, naught, the null set, cipher, a goose egg .... 0 – taxes on that sale.
Now I realize that this Bush administration has so conditioned Republicans that the truth and facts are complete strangers to them – so to help you out here, feel free to check a source that knows whereof it speaks ... the Department of Revenue itself:
www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p523.pdf
DIVIDEND TAX
MCCAIN 15% (no change)
OBAMA 39.6%
CLINTON 39.6%
How will this affect you?
If you have any money invested in stock market, IRA, mutual funds, college funds, life insurance, retirement accounts, or anything that pays or reinvests dividends, you will now be paying nearly 40% of the money earned on taxes if Obama or Clinton become [sic] president. The experts predict that "Higher tax rates on dividends and capital gains would crash the stock market yet do absolutely nothing to cut the deficit."
First of all, let’s be clear that McCain himself voted AGAINST Bush’s change in the dividend tax rate that this fabulist is now trying to credit him with.
Putting that fact aside, true to form s/he proceeds to lie about what both Senators Obama and Clinton have proposed: they both have stated they intend to extend tax cuts for the middle class ... but want to eliminate the humongous tax break Bush/Cheney have provided to their wealthy cronies.
Maybe – just maybe – a few facts about how Bush’s much "touted" tax cuts have actually impacted you and me (not the super-duper wealthy – they did very well, thank you very much – but you and me); and more importantly, looking at who benefited from those tax cuts will shed a little light of truth and move whoever wrote this screed to join us back here in the reality-based world.
As reported by the government’s very own non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the top one percent (1%) of households (that would be the super-duper rich) receive an average tax cut of $78,460 every year.
Not only is that $78,460 greater than 70 times the tax cut provided to middle class households – but the super-duper rich get more just in their tax cuts alone than the entire average income of a middle class family.
That means that fully one-third of all the dollars the Bush's tax cuts "provide" have benefited people at the top 1 percent of income. And those top 1 percenters earned an average of $1.2 MILLION - $1,200,000.00 – every year.
(Are you raking in an annual salary of $1,200,000.00? Well, bless your heart.)
So according to Bush/McSame you just gotta believe that if you’re trying to scrape by on a measly annual income of only $1.2 MILLION you most certainly could use that extra $78,460 (is that what the super-duper rich call CHUMP change?) courtesy of the Bush administration.
Any fair and reasonable person would say that the super-duper rich have been slopping at the trough that Bush put out for them long enough. So on this point, I’d agree with the McCain from back in 2001 and 2003 when he had a true but rare "maverick moment" and voted against Bush’s tax gifts to the wealthy – because they obviously are unfair.
A source? Of course:
http://jec.senate.gov/...
http://money.cnn.com/...
http://query.nytimes.com/...
http://www.cbpp.org/...
INCOME TAX
MCCAIN (no changes)
Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $31,250
OBAMA (reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts)
Single making 30K - tax $8,400
Single making 50K - tax $14,000
Single making 75K - tax $23,250
Married making 60K - tax $16,800
Married making 75K - tax $21,000
Married making 125K - tax $38,750
CLINTON (reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts)
Single making 30K - tax $8,400
Single making 50K - tax $14,000
Single making 75K - tax $23,250
Married making 60K - tax $16,800
Married making 75K - tax $21,000
Married making 125K - tax $38,750
How does this affect you?
No explanation needed. This is pretty straight forward [sic].
* sigh *
Who knows from what orifice s/he pulled these numbers out of – but from wherever they were pulled, you can bet that place doesn’t get any sunshine.
No explanation needed. This is pretty straightforward bullshit.
INHERITANCE TAX
MCCAIN 0% (No change, Bush repealed this tax)
OBAMA keep the inheritance tax
CLINTON keep the inheritance tax
How does this affect you?
Many families have lost businesses, farms and ranches, and homes that have been in their families for generations because they could not afford the inheritance tax. Those willing their assets to loved ones will not only lose them to these taxes.
So many lies – so little time. Where to begin ... where to begin?
Well, let’s start by taking a look at a little thing called our Constitution. Let me check ... yep, here it is – The United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8: Congress "shall make all laws". So Bush – although he certainly acts like he thinks he’s a king – didn’t "repeal" a damn thing ... Congress (you know – that place where Democrats are now in charge) did.
And to hone that point a little sharper – even Congress didn’t "repeal" the inheritance tax ... that’s because it’s only a temporary phase-out bill which will expire after 2010.
But just for the novelty of exposing this email to the truth – let’s take a look at the specific provisions of even the current phase-out bill:
[1] It provides that single individuals will have no tax levied at all on their estates until they exceed $2 MILLION - $2,000,000.00.
[2] And for married couples it doubles to $4 MILLION before there’s any tax on their estate.
[3] And next year those limits are raised to $3.5 MILLION for an individual and $7 MILLION for a couple.
So unless you’re lucky enough to be in the top 0.27% tier who are wealthy enough to actually get to pay an inheritance tax (that means that 99.73% of us don’t have these kinds of money "worries" to contend with) – you’ve home free.
A source? Of course:
http://www.faireconomy.org/...
http://www.mortensonlaw.com/...
NEW TAXES BEING PROPOSED BY BOTH CLINTON AND OBAMA
* New government taxes proposed on homes that are more than 2400 square feet
* New gasoline taxes (as if gas weren't high enough already)
* New taxes on natural resources consumption (heating gas, water, electricity)
* New taxes on retirement accounts and last but not least....
* New taxes to pay for socialized medicine so we can receive the same level of medical care as other third-world countries!!!
Can you afford Clinton or Obama?
One just has to guess that it must be a happy little world in the make-believe mind of whoever wrote this last bunch of lies (and it goes without saying that s/he believes "we don’t need no stinkin’ references").
But the real questions s/he should be asking all Americans are:
Can you afford four more years of McSame who is now favoring permanently giving those $78,460 tax cuts to the super-duper rich?
And more critically, can anyone afford paying for McSame’s Hundred Year War in Iraq? A war, which even prior to his own dire prediction, is on track to rack up a cost of three TRILLION dollars - $3,000,000,000,000.00! (Did I put enough zeroes there?)
A source? Of course:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://www.la.cityzine.com/...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.nowpublic.com/...
