Robert Reeves: “Thought you would be interested in what the right wing is circulating. If it is untrue, someone should respond.”
From: DavidXXXXX@aol.com [email obscured to protect naïve sender]
Sent: Saturday, June 04, 2011 1:53 PM
Subject: Will you sell your house??
If this is true (see below), then this tax may be the nail in the coffin of the housing & real estate markets. When will they get it? Also, what will this do to the banks if homeowners have a market value near their mortgage balance? Many will walk away and make the foreclosure crisis much worse!
—– Original Message —–
WILL YOU EVER SELL YOUR HOUSE?
Did you know that if you sell your house after 2012 you will pay a 3.8% sales tax on it? That’s $3,800 on a $100,000 home etc. When did this happen? It’s in the health care bill. Just thought you should know.
SALES TAX TO GO INTO EFFECT 2013 (Part of HC Bill) Why 2013? Could it be to come to light AFTER the 2012 elections?
REAL ESTATE SALES TAX
So, this is “change you can believe in”? Under the new health care bill – did you know that all real estate transactions will be subject to a 3.8% Sales Tax? The bulk of these new taxes don’t kick in until 2013. If you sell your $400,000 home, there will be a $15,200 tax. This bill is set to screw the retiring generation who often downsize their homes. Does this stuff make your 2012 vote more important?
Oh, you weren’t aware this was in the Obamacare bill? Guess what, you aren’t alone. There are more than a few members of Congress that aren’t aware of it either.
Why am I sending you this? The same reason I hope you forward this to every single person in your address book. VOTERS NEED TO KNOW.
☞ It’s ridiculous, of course.
If you sell your home for $100K, or even $400,000, there is no “sales tax.”
The higher capital gains tax is on the profit only – and only to the extent that profit exceeds $250,000 (or $500,000 if you file jointly) – and only to the extent THAT extra gain puts your total income above $250K. So, yes, if you sell your house with a $1 million gain, you’ll pay 3.8% more on a portion of that gain – but still less, even on that portion, than you would have paid back in those awful Clinton/Gore years.
Not too many folks are sitting on $1 million gains in their homes these days. And how awful were the Clinton/Gore years, anyway?
The people who wrote this nonsense are, I think, deeply cynical. The people passing it on are quite literally “mis-guided.”
Both groups are rightly alarmed by the size and trajectory of our National Debt . . . which was gradually worked down from 121% of GDP after World War II to a far healthier 30% when Reagan took over – at which time the top federal tax bracket was 70% on dividends and interest, 28% on long-term capital gains.
Under Reagan, Bush, and Bush, the Debt exploded from the 30% of GDP that Reagan inherited to the 100% of GDP Bush handed Obama – handng him, too, a $1.5 trillion 2009 deficit (set before he was even elected) and an economy on the brink of depression.
All this despite Clinton’s turning then deficit around, leaving Bush 43 “surpluses as far as the eye could see.”
If high tax rates kill jobs and low tax rates make for tremendous job creation, then 1946-1981 should have seen a disastrous economy (but didn’t), 1981-1992 should have been boom years (but weren’t), 1993-2000 should have been a bust (22 million new jobs were created), and 2001-2011 should have been the best economy the world has ever seen.
Give . . . me . . . a . . . break.
