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Recent articles in the New York Times and the Fiscal Times entertain the notion that President Obama’s income tax plan will result in unaffordable tax increases for families who make $250,000 a year. One theme of these articles is that in some parts of the country, $250,000 is really not very much to raise a family on.
A new report from CTJ explains that this is wrong on several levels:
1. If enacted in 2011, 84 percent of the revenue savings from Obama’s plan to partially end the Bush income tax cuts would come from people whose income exceeds $1 million annually.
2. A married couple whose income is exactly $250,000 would see no change in their income taxes under Obama’s plan. In fact, most married couples with incomes between $250,000 and $300,000 would see no change in their income taxes. On average, married couples in this group would lose just one percent of their Bush income tax cuts, under Obama’s plan.
3. Only 2.6 percent of taxpayers will even have adjusted gross income above $250,000 (or above $200,000 for unmarried taxpayers) in 2013. Congress should target this group for higher taxes.
4. The attempts to show that $250,000 is really not very much to live on prove nothing, other than how wildly out of touch reporters and opinion-makers are with the rest of America.