What I don't understand about this response is that even Bernie says that taxes will increase for everyone under his plan. It's not new info. We just have some dollars and cents now to back it up.
People obviously weren't listening to that part. They only heard the higher taxes on the rich portion of his plan.
Post by winnieandwine on Mar 26, 2016 6:23:13 GMT -5
TRUMP Pay $34,920 less
CRUZ Pay $56,990 less
CLINTON Pay $2,490 more
SANDERS Pay $42,450 more
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in all reality, our effective tax rate (28.5%) is higher than the average for our income, so we'd be getting a tax cut with trump, cruz, and clinton and our taxes would only go up about $22k with sanders
Which claims to be unbiased but only compares Bernie and Donald Trump and the answers I got came up basically the same (Bernie's tax plan vs Trump). I need someone smarter than me to school me on this one.
Which claims to be unbiased but only compares Bernie and Donald Trump and the answers I got came up basically the same (Bernie's tax plan vs Trump). I need someone smarter than me to school me on this one.
From Bernie's site: Paid for by a 6.2 percent income-based health care premium paid by employers, a 2.2 percent income-based premium paid by households, progressive income tax rates, taxing capital gains and dividends the same as income from work, limiting tax deductions for the rich, adjusting the estate tax, and savings from health tax expenditures.
Now, we don't know what the progressive income tax rates are going to be as this is not spelled out - my guess is that as he's talking about increasing taxes (cause we do have to pay for everything) and Trump is talking about decreasing taxes (who knows how we're going to pay for anything), that they can't have the same results. In addition, I'm imagining that companies are going to pass on the cost of that 6.2 premium to most people who work for them in some way.
I would also ask where the heck they got their numbers from as the site doesn't state shit except to put down Donald Trump. They don't explain how Sanders numbers were figured out.
$44,250 more under Bernie. If we hadn't already paid back student loans and had more expensive health insurance that might sound slightly more desirable.
OMG, I don't even know what I'd do if I found out I now owed the government over $40k more in taxes. Flipping my shit is an understatement! It would be akin to saying Chernobyl was a slight puff of steam.Â
Since the last person to run on a campaign of raising everyone's taxes lost every state but one in the general election, I'm operating under the assumption that this has a .001% chance of actually happening.
If I weren't I'd probably be most worried about the fact that I trust the US government to effectively administrate the programs he is proposing not at all. It's not like they have a great track record or anything. Social security and Medicare/Medicaid anyone?
Post by mrsukyankee on Mar 26, 2016 11:24:51 GMT -5
I think the Time article kinda says it all (they even talk about the Tax Analysis by the Tax Foundation):
"It's a very, very, very big tax increase for everyone except those at the bottom."
Correction appended, Jan. 28, 2016
Ever since Walter Mondale lost the 1984 election by a landslide after saying he would raise taxes, the conventional wisdom has been that it was the worst thing a presidential candidate could say. Bernie Sanders doesn’t buy that.
“We will raise taxes,” the Vermont Senator told a crowd at the CNN Democratic town hall this week. “Yes, we will.”
Sanders, who is neck-and-neck with Hillary Clinton in Iowa and leading New Hampshire, has proposed an array of ambitious new government programs, from free college tuition and paid family leave to universal health care, and recently dropped a new tax plan explaining how he’d pay for it all.
The upshot?
“It’s a very, very, very big tax increase for everyone except those at the bottom,” Roberton Williams, a fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told TIME.
In an analysis released today, the Tax Foundation, an independent tax policy research organization, found that Sanders’ plan would lead to 10.56% lower after-tax income for all taxpayers, and a 17.91% lower after-tax income for the wealthiest Americans. When accounting for reduced GDP, taxpayers would see their after-tax incomes fall by 12.84% on average, the report said.
Williams was more cautionary. “There are also a lot of moving pieces,” he explained. “It’s a big tax increase, but there are all these goodies on the other end. So there will be winners and losers.”
Take, for example, Sanders’ plan to provide universal, single-payer healthcare. Sanders says he’d pay for that with a new 2.2% income-based “health care premium” tax, as well as a 6.2% payroll tax paid for by employers. That adds up to a big increase—but it also means that, in exchange, Americans would save the thousands of dollars they spend every year on premiums, deductibles and other out-of-pocket health care costs.
The typical American family of four covered by an employer-sponsored health care plan paid $24,671 last year on health care costs alone, according to the non-partisan Milliman Medical Index.
“The savings that Americans would gain by the elimination of private insurance premiums and deductibles are much greater than the public insurance premiums they would pay under Bernie’s plan,” Warren Gunnels, Sanders’ policy director told TIME.
“The typical family of four making $50,000 a year would pay less than $46 a month under Bernie’s plan for three months of paid family and medical leave and universal health care,” he said.
“This is not a tax hike,” he added. “It’s a major cost savings.”
In addition to the health care premium and payroll tax, Sanders also proposes a raft of other income-based tax hikes that he says will pay for other programs, such as expanding Social Security and providing paid family leave: a 0.4% payroll tax, a shift to tax capital gains and dividends as ordinary income, an elimination of the existing Social Security payroll tax exemption for earnings above $250,000, etc. The list goes on—and it starts to add up.
In a detailed analysis, Dylan Matthews at Vox estimates that Sanders’ proposed income-based tax hikes alone—ignoring Sanders’ other proposed taxes, such as those on carbon and financial transactions—would pencil out to an 8.8 percentage point increase for those with income below $250,000.
Howard Gleckman of the non-partisan Tax Policy Center estimates that the marginal tax rate for the richest Americans on the last dollars of income under Sanders’ plan would be 58%.
What’s clear is that those at the very top of the income ladder would definitely feel the Bern the most.
According to Sanders’ team’s calculations, which do not take into account the health care premiums, those who make more than $1 million a year would see their effective tax rates—in other words, the amount they pay after deductions and credits—on income alone increase from about 30% to 36%. Those who make more than $5 millionwould see it increase from 29% to 47%.
Add those tax increases to Sanders’ proposed new taxes on investment income and the effective tax rate starts to climb.
Matthews estimates the rate for the richest bracket would be closer to 77%—a number we haven’t seen since 1964, back before income inequality was a thing. (Unlike Gunnels, Matthews includes in his calculations Sanders’ 2.2% health care premium, plus the Affordable Care Act’s 3.8% surtax on investment income, which Sanders’ plan would keep in place, plus the 6.2% employer-paid health care premium, which he assumes will be passed onto employees, as it usually is.)
Sanders’ plan would also hit the wealthy in other ways. It would expand the estate tax, cap the value of deductions at 28% for those making $250,000 or more, and levy a tax on all financial transactions, such as trades as stocks, bonds, derivatives and other securities.
The financial transactions tax is a tiny surcharge—usually a few hundredths of one percent—levied on each trade. It would have an almost imperceptible effect on most Americans, who buy and sell in the stock market only occasionally, but it could skim as much as $185 billion over ten years from high-frequency traders and the rest of the hedge fund sets.
Sanders’ plan would also hike the capital gains tax on the upper income brackets. Those with taxable incomes above $250,000 would pay a 50% capital gains tax, and the very rich—those with taxable incomes above $2,000,00o—would pay more than 60% on that income.
All of these calculations, of course, suppose that Sanders’ tax plan has a snowball’s chance in Congress of actually passing. Which it does not. Even with a Democratic Congress. And even with a President Sanders in 2017.
Correction: The original version of this story misstated the effect a Tax Foundation analysis said Bernie Sanders’ tax plan would have on Americans’ incomes. The analysis said after-tax incomes would fall by 12.84% or more on average. The story also misstated which tax rate would top 58% for the richest Americans. It would be the marginal tax rate, according to the analysis.
And if people don't like Time Magazine, they can check out THIS ARTICLE in the Foundation for Economic Education website.
$44,250 more under Bernie. If we hadn't already paid back student loans and had more expensive health insurance that might sound slightly more desirable.
OMG, I don't even know what I'd do if I found out I now owed the government over $40k more in taxes. Flipping my shit is an understatement! It would be akin to saying Chernobyl was a slight puff of steam.
I agree with this. At some point, I'm not even thinking about the percentages anymore. The actual dollar amounts are giving me heart palpitations. If the numbers from Bernie's plan calculations are correct, or even close, I'm pretty sure my total taxes paid would be very, very close to $100k per year, if not over. That is a big number to swallow for a couple below $250k HHI.
OMG, I don't even know what I'd do if I found out I now owed the government over $40k more in taxes. Flipping my shit is an understatement! It would be akin to saying Chernobyl was a slight puff of steam.
I agree with this. At some point, I'm not even thinking about the percentages anymore. The actual dollar amounts are giving me heart palpitations. If the numbers from Bernie's plan calculations are correct, or even close, I'm pretty sure my total taxes paid would be very, very close to $100k per year, if not over. That is a big number to swallow for a couple below $250k HHI.
I agree with this. At some point, I'm not even thinking about the percentages anymore. The actual dollar amounts are giving me heart palpitations. If the numbers from Bernie's plan calculations are correct, or even close, I'm pretty sure my total taxes paid would be very, very close to $100k per year, if not over. That is a big number to swallow for a couple below $250k HHI.
Yep. We're in a similar place.
I'm also just thinking that this doesn't even include my property taxes. Or sales tax. LOFL.
Actually, the more I think about it, that kind of number is probably about what it would take for me to renounce my US citizenship. I'm hopefully a couple months away from getting the paperwork I need to prove my German citizenship (thank you mom for not taking care of this when I was a kid). I don't need or want to be cutting a $40k plus check to every year to a country I don't even live in to pay for a whole bunch of things that won't work and will help me not at all.
Actually, the more I think about it, that kind of number is probably about what it would take for me to renounce my US citizenship. I'm hopefully a couple months away from getting the paperwork I need to prove my German citizenship (thank you mom for not taking care of this when I was a kid). I don't need or want to be cutting a $40k plus check to every year to a country I don't even live in to pay for a whole bunch of things that won't work and will help me not at all.
I'm doing it this summer after my visit to the US. I know that I already will owe taxes in the UK and US due to owning more than 1 property and it's next to impossible to have a UK retirement fund (as it'll be taxed by the US). I'm sadly done. And I'm not even a 'rich' expat - I'm solidly upper middle class and that is what will screw me out of money if I stay an American citizen.
Our taxes would increase by about $22,000 under Sanders and $350 under HRC; we would see a drop of $11,360 under Trump and $13,510 under Cruz. I really don't mind paying more in taxes if it is going to building up programs like K-12, giving our nation universal pre-K, and improving access to health care. However, I believe that Bernie's priorities are wrong. I don't believe we should be offering free tuition at public universities when we currently have such major problems in primary education (K-12) and no universal pre-K. I am also unwilling to pay up-front for a health care plan in which we don't have details (aka Bernie's single-payer system in which we don't know if it will be modeled after Canada or Britain).
Post by StrawberryBlondie on Mar 26, 2016 14:04:43 GMT -5
I got something from a website called datatician.com claiming that the "vox calculations are so wrong" as they pertain to Bernie."
I can't open it on my phone so I have no idea if it's an actual counterpoint or a Bro counterpoint. Given who posted it, I'm sincerely hoping the former, or my opinion of him will drop significantly.
I got something from a website called datatician.com claiming that the "vox calculations are so wrong" as they pertain to Bernie."
I can't open it on my phone so I have no idea if it's an actual counterpoint or a Bro counterpoint. Given who posted it, I'm sincerely hoping the former, or my opinion of him will drop significantly.
It's a counterpoint, I wouldn't classify it as a bro one, but glancing through it it definitely seems pro-Bernie (emphasises healthcare savings when we honestly have no idea what exactly his healthcare plan would look like, etc). link
I got something from a website called datatician.com claiming that the "vox calculations are so wrong" as they pertain to Bernie."
I can't open it on my phone so I have no idea if it's an actual counterpoint or a Bro counterpoint. Given who posted it, I'm sincerely hoping the former, or my opinion of him will drop significantly.
It's a counterpoint, I wouldn't classify it as a bro one, but glancing through it it definitely seems pro-Bernie (emphasises healthcare savings when we honestly have no idea what exactly his healthcare plan would look like, etc). link
I hit send too soon. With Clinton, I'd pay $1,220 more, which is fine. I can handle $100 a month more in taxes, no problem. I wouldn't even object to $200 more a month. But Bernie's plan would have me paying ten times that, or $2000 more a month in taxes. FUCK NO. I have never before been a pocketbook voter, but I have just now found out that there's a point at which I become one.
On the other hand, I'm equally disturbed by the amounts my taxes would go down under Trump and Cruz's plan. Where the fuck does the money come from to cut my taxes by $20k and $30k respectively?
Post by CheeringCharm on Mar 26, 2016 16:37:29 GMT -5
I think it's good that this info is getting out there though so people can make fully informed choices. I think it's fine if we as a society want to switch to a single payer healthcare system and make college free, among other things. They're worthy goals (and I say this as someone whose taxes would increase by a great deal). But they're also *very* expensive and implementing these changes will require everyone to chip in and pay more. No free rides. There are no unicorns here and people should know this ahead of time. There are trade offs to everything.
Post by redheadbaker on Mar 27, 2016 8:31:25 GMT -5
I told FI about our results ($50 more for Clinton, $14K more for Sanders, $4K less for Cruz, $6K less for Trump), and he said, "Well, that would be offset by having no healthcare costs. [Um, not completely] And besides, those taxes wouldn't even be implemented if Sanders can't implement the programs [is that even correct?]"
How many of you read about how they are calculating this? I ask because it doesn't seem to mean what I took it to mean at face value, which I only realized after something didn't add up for me.* They originally used your adjusted gross income to calculate it, but then decided to switch to "expanded cash income" to provide a more accurate measure of tax rates; I don't understand how they figure our ECI from the income we report? I also wonder how fair it is to compare the increase in taxes as reported by this calculator when I assume that most people take it to mean what I did at face value. In addition to using ECI instead of AGI, they are including more than income tax in this, including excise taxes. So from my very quick review of excise taxes, it's including taxes on things like cigarettes, gasoline, plane tickets, and other spending. I don't understand why they are including everything here, and it makes my suspicions rise. The fact that it's not straightforward and is difficult for me as a pretty well-educated and relatively intelligent person to understand leaves me frustrated. It seems like it's comparing apples to oranges because most people aren't likely to read or even understand what all of that means and they will just assume it's paying xyz amount more in income tax, which is not what this means. And I'm frustrated with this board for seeming to do the same thing that you criticize supporters of other candidates of doing in not using critical thinking and providing an excellent display of confirmation bias at work.
*I didn't originally question the calculator but was looking at it again tonight because of the other tax links posted in this thread. Then I wanted to see the actual amount in taxes we'd be paying under the plans, so I applied the tax rates given to me for plans under Clinton and Sanders. When I did that, the difference in amount between the plans didn't match what was presented to me by the calculator. That's when I started reading more about all of this.
Once I become suspicious, I find more things about which to be suspicious (see confirmation bias above). So then I also found some of their descriptions biased/inconsistent, such as these statements below.
First, from what was learned from the calculator: "Sanders wants to implement massive increases across the board, including on the poor."
But then later, in describing Sanders' plan: "tax increases would be small for lower- and middle-income households."
So would tax increases be small or massive for lower tax brackets? Um, no idea.
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My takeaway from all of this is 95% discouragement no matter what happens with this election.
Also, my anxiety in simply imagining coming back to respond goes sky high, so if you reply to me or ask me something, I already know I'm not going to answer, and it's not because I don't care. I will read though. Sorry.
Thank you for taking the time to read through this and point all this out. I don't want you to have anxiety in posting here!
I think your points are good ones but because a central part of Ted Cruz's tax plan is a VAT, you have to do a out of pocket comparison, otherwise it would look like his tax cuts are even more enormous than they are.
With That in mind, I don't have an issue with the methodology. It's a rough estimate of how this will impact me out of pocket. Of course it's imprecise, it's not asking about things like mortgage deductions or anything like that.
I think most of us are smart enough to know this is a back if the envelope calculation. Maybe depending on my unique circumstances, I will only actually pay $1700 more a month. Or maybe I will pay $2300 more a month. Point is, I can look at this and know that his proposed plan will have an enormous impact on my bottom line.
I told FI about our results ($50 more for Clinton, $14K more for Sanders, $4K less for Cruz, $6K less for Trump), and he said, "Well, that would be offset by having no healthcare costs. [Um, not completely] And besides, those taxes wouldn't even be implemented if Sanders can't implement the programs [is that even correct?]"
There are different ways to go about it. Typically though such comprehensive changes would entail multiple committees in the House and Senate being involved in the crafting and markup of the bill(s). In the case of the Affordable Care Act, for example, the House committees involved were Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means (for the revenue raising component of the bill), and Education and Labor. In the Senate, the Senate Finance Committee (for the revenue raising component) and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee were in charge of the ACA bill. The committees individually dealt with the provisions under their own jurisdiction and once it made it through the committees, the bill in its entirety was put before the entire body.
Like any piece of major reform legislation, these are just estimates and often the costs are considerably more than originally estimated. Whether the new taxes are offset by "free healthcare," depends on a series of assumptions, like employers raising wages in lieu of having to provide (or subsidize) health benefits.
Of course, raising taxes does not need to be done in connection with his single payer bill. It could be achieved in the budget or through other legislative vehicles.
Um, so under Sander's plan, if I have one child, my taxes increase over $16k, but if I have no children, my taxes increase $12k. How in the fuck does that make any sense!? Hillary's plan is the only one that actually makes sense in this regard ($120 with one child, $180 without any).
But, he is the best candidate for women and understands issues pertaining to women. Lol no.
Um, so under Sander's plan, if I have one child, my taxes increase over $16k, but if I have no children, my taxes increase $12k. How in the fuck does that make any sense!? Hillary's plan is the only one that actually makes sense in this regard ($120 with one child, $180 without any).
But, he is the best candidate for women and understands issues pertaining to women. Lol no.
My guess is you pay more per person in your household because he is trying to fund UHC so each child costs more.
but yeah I don't want to pay 20k more in taxes lol. Although our health insurance costs about 15k....
But, he is the best candidate for women and understands issues pertaining to women. Lol no.
My guess is you pay more per person in your household because he is trying to fund UHC so each child costs more.
but yeah I don't want to pay 20k more in taxes lol. Although our health insurance costs about 15k....
That's what I initially thought too but I played around with it a bit yesterday and realized it goes down with a second child. And if our income went down by $20k we'd only have a savings of $600. Obviously these are rough calculations and not necessarily how it would be in practice but our healthcare costs currently don't even come close to approaching $22k a year, and that includes my H's employer's costs.
mishy I looked at the details and stopped worrying. At first I was alarmed but I noticed what it was doing was adding the 6% employer payroll tax to me as well, under the assumption that this cost would be passed down to me.
however, they didn't subtract anything for the savings the employer would see. My company currently offers health insurance plans for which they will pay approx $1500/month. So a total of $18k per year which sadly is far more than 6% of my salary lol.
I'm certainly not saying my situation is anybody else's, or others shouldn't worry. I am just saying that I looked at the charts and our federal tax rate is 28% now and we'd still be in the 28% window under bernies plan. The 2.2 percent medicare for all or the 0.2 percent family leave costs he is proposing don't concern me.
I also work for a large company and so does my husband, so I realize that things would be very different if it was a very small company that wasn't currently offering to pay health insurance, or was paying a tiny amount, suddenly had to pay 6% payroll tax for all employees. So I can really only speak for myself and not anybody else but I'm not concerned bernies tax plan would negatively affect us to a large degree
I also think the cruz and trump plans are ridiculous and not rooted in reality. A flat tax/sales tax is certainly the way we should NOT be going in, IMO. I can't even take their plans into consideration. Hillary's plan would also be fine for us.
mishy I looked at the details and stopped worrying. At first I was alarmed but I noticed what it was doing was adding the 6% employer payroll tax to me as well, under the assumption that this cost would be passed down to me.
however, they didn't subtract anything for the savings the employer would see. My company currently offers health insurance plans for which they will pay approx $1500/month. So a total of $18k per year which sadly is far more than 6% of my salary lol.
I'm certainly not saying my situation is anybody else's, or others shouldn't worry. I am just saying that I looked at the charts and our federal tax rate is 28% now and we'd still be in the 28% window under bernies plan. The 2.2 percent medicare for all or the 0.2 percent family leave costs he is proposing don't concern me.
I also work for a large company and so does my husband, so I realize that things would be very different if it was a very small company that wasn't currently offering to pay health insurance, or was paying a tiny amount, suddenly had to pay 6% payroll tax for all employees. So I can really only speak for myself and not anybody else but I'm not concerned bernies tax plan would negatively affect us to a large degree
I also think the cruz and trump plans are ridiculous and not rooted in reality. A flat tax/sales tax is certainly the way we should NOT be going in, IMO. I can't even take their plans into consideration. Hillary's plan would also be fine for us.
Do you think your employer would increase your salary by the amount they are paying in insurance premiums?? I can't imagine any place I've ever worked doing that and I have worked exclusively for self-identified progressive nonprofits with "good benefits" in my adult working life. So the ~35k increase in taxes would not be offset by any change in my income.
no but I don't think they'd DECREASE my salary by 6% if they are saving much more than that when the 6% tax is imposed. So for me personally, I think our tax burden would not change much. The calculator adds the 6% payroll employer tax to my burden, without taking into account the employer savings. It assumes that not only would my company not increase my salary by whatever amount they pay for health care (I don't think they would) but also that they would put the 6% burden on me additionally. I mean, I guess it could happen but personally it sounds unlikely for our particular situation so I'm not that concerned.
How are we supposed to know who to believe? According to berniesanders.com:
"Senator Sanders’ personal income tax reform plan would make the wealthiest 2.1 percent of households in America pay their fair share by making three types of reforms. These changes would not affect any married couples with income below $250,000 or singles with incomes below $200,000."
Will his plan not affect me at all or would I be paying $16k more in taxes? I'm assuming it's somewhere in the middle, but I have no idea how to be sure.