I recently received the following:

Kerry, maybe you could clarify this for me…(from John Kerry’s website) http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/budget.pdf

pg 3 he claims to raise taxes on only those making over $200K, but then says he will restore the top two tax rates to their levels under president Clinton. Doesn’t the 2nd tax rate start at 146,750 for individuals and 178,650 for couples – doesn’t Kerry have to have some clarification on this?

Thanks for your updates, I find them useful.

My reply:

You are close on the figures; but have an excellent point. I pulled out my 2000 Federal income tax rate schedules and the 36% bracket started at $161,451 for married couples and $132,601 for single taxpayers. Inflation adjustments have continued to move the starting points up over the years.

This practice of nailing many more people than the avowed targets isn’t anything new for DemonRats. In 1993, when the Clinton-Gore team passed their humongous tax increase, they instituted a 10% “Millionaire Surtax,” which gave us the top 39.6% bracket (36% + 3.6%). The funny thing was that this top bracket started at taxable income of $250,000 and above. Many people were then punished as evil millionaires without earning anywhere close to a million dollars.

Thanks for writing.

Scrutiny on the Bounty

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A Social Security Tax Puzzle

Tax Cuts, Jobs and ‘Jeopardy!’

IRS has been trying to lure us hold-outs from the use of electronic filing of tax returns by offering some very handy online services. The latest is the ability to get client account transcripts immediately. I have to admit that this would be a very useful tool, especially in trying to resolve the constant problem of payments being applied to the wrong tax period. However, as tempting as this is, I still believe that the down-sides of filing tax returns electronically outweigh the benefits; so I won’t be signing up for this program. There is no way I will ever meet the qualification of filing 100 or more tax returns electronically per year.

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Why Regulate Insider Trading?

Income inequality – Walter E. Williams

Let’s Talk Taxes – R. Glenn Hubbard

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Tax Cut Jujitsu

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The Origin of the Income Tax – Many thanks to Andrew Roth for finding this very interesting history lesson with a lot of juicy facts from well before my time.