Tax the wealthy, Exactly what Does Obama Mean?

[pennypinch]

If elected president of the United States in November, Barack Obama says he wants to raise the taxes for high-income taxpayers. What does this mean? What is considered high-income? Who will this affect? Obama says married couples with an income higher than $250,000 per year are the ones who will pay a higher tax. Singles with an income of $200,000 will pay more.

Those groups could end up paying anywhere from several thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars more to Uncle Sam than they do now, according to estimates from the Tax Policy Center.

By Jeanne Sahadi

I really don't know how well this would go over with the higher-income Americans. This won't affect me, I don't make that much. I am tired of paying high-taxes myself though. I have to pay a lot every year just into self-employment tax. I wish they would reconfigure that. Even though I don't make much, I pay a third of my yearly income to self-employment tax. It is too much! We will just have to wait this one out.

Tax the wealthy, What Does Obama Mean?

[moneysense]

The problem with lowering the self employment tax is this.

The self employment tax is what goes into our future Social Security payments for when we retire. If they lower this tax, that would lower, possibly what we would get per month in the form of a Social Security check.

It is rough to pay this sometimes, but keep in mind what this tax if for.

[pennypinch]

I agree that this is important for our future and that we will need the funds in order to retire. What I am saying though is that for those of us who don't make that much to begin with it is a lot to have to pay. If you are employed by someone else, you only have to pay half of this amount and the employer pays the other half. We are getting slammed with the full amount and at my rate of pay it really hits hard. To top it off you still have all of the other taxes to pay as well, it takes a lot out of me in a years time.

[moneysense]

You do have the option of making payments on this tax to the IRS. All you have to do is call them to set this option up.

I find it hard at times to make these payments, but I am willing to do it because I will need all the money I can get per month when I retire.

By the time I retire, the cost of things will be so high that I would find paying bills quite hard to do.

But I fully understand what you are saying.