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Townhall
Five
Percent
by Rich Galen
Nov 30, 2012
The
good news about coming to the
end of November is that we will soon embark on December meaning the
clock will
be clicking toward January by which time the Fiscal Cliff business will
dealt
with.
Until
the long scythe of the grim
reaper signals the looming end of 2012, the parties to a potential
solution
will spend as much time posturing in public as parleying in private.
I
gotta tell you. I don't
understand all this anyway. I know my taxes are going up next year -
one way or
another. My rates will rise, my deductions will fall, or both. I'm not
happy
about that, but I've come to accept it.
Let's
say my family taxable income
for 2013 will be a little over $250,000 - just over the magic number
making us,
by specific declaration of the President of these United States,
wealthy.
Whoo.
Hoo.
According
to Forbes.com I could
reasonably be expected to pay: "$73,696 in federal, state, local and
FICA
taxes." That is an effect tax rate of a little over 29 percent.
Ok
assuming my withholding was
correct I ended up with $176,300 in spendable income or about $14,700
per
month.
That's
not Warren Bufett money, but
it's not peanuts.
Now,
let's say I get hit with an
overall 5 percent increase in taxes - payroll, income, and so on. If my
arithmetic is correct that means an addition $3,685 over the course of
the year
or just north of $300 per month.
Nothing
to sneeze at but that will
still leave me with $14,300 per month on which I suspect we can scrape
by so,
while I might not like it, it won't make us change our habits all that
much.
Fewer
stops at Starbucks in the
morning, and fewer meals at Landini's in the evening. Some jobs will be
lost in
Alexandria, Virginia as you multiply that by all the people who get
their
coffee and eat their meals at the same places I do in our relatively
small
community, but the Federal government will get my money.
That's
the revenue side of the
equation.
Let's
look that the Federal
spending side…
Read
the rest of the article at Townhall
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