Affordable Care Act Does Not Raise Taxes On Most Americans – And Includes Tax Credits For Millions

Affordable Care Act “Will Provide More Tax Relief Than Tax Burden” For Middle Class. According to the Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler: “The health law, if it works as the nonpartisan government analysts expect, will provide more tax relief than tax burden for middle-income Americans.” [WashingtonPost.com, 7/6/12]

FactCheck.org: “A Large Majority Of Americans Would Not See Any Direct Tax Increase From The Health Care Law.” According to FactCheck.org: “It’s certainly true that the health care law would raise taxes on some Americans, particularly those with higher incomes. The law includes a Medicare payroll tax of 0.9 percent on income over $200,000 for individuals or $250,000 for couples, and a 3.8 percent tax on investment income for those earning that much. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the biggest chunk of revenue — $210.2 billion — comes from those taxes. There are other taxes in the health care law — including an excise tax on the manufacturers of certain medical devices and on indoor tanning services. The health care law included $437.8 billion in tax revenue over 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation‘s calculations. Republicans tend to add in fees on individuals who don’t obtain health insurance (which the Supreme Court now agrees can be considered taxes) and businesses that don’t provide it to bump that up to about $500 billion. Some taxes, such as those on medical devices, may or may not be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, but a large majority of Americans would not see any direct tax increase from the health care law.” [FactCheck.org, 6/28/12]

• Individual Penalty Payments “Tiny” Compared To President Obama’s Previous Tax Cuts. According to FactCheck.org, the increased revenue from penalty payments by individuals who do not obtain health insurance represents “a tiny future increase compared with the tax cuts Obama has already delivered, including an estimated $120 billion in 2012 alone from the 2 percentage point cut in payroll taxes.” [FactCheck.org, 5/17/12]

Affordable Care Act Includes Tax Credits For Millions Of Americans. According to Families USA: “We found that an estimated 28.6 million Americans will be eligible for the tax credits in 2014, and that the total value of the tax credits that year will be $110.1 billion. The new tax credits will provide much-needed assistance to insured individuals and families who struggle harder each year to pay rising premiums, as well as to uninsured individuals and families who need help purchasing coverage that otherwise would be completely out of reach financially. Most of the families who will be eligible for the tax credits will be employed, many for small businesses, and will have incomes between two and four times poverty (between $44,100 and $88,200 for a family of four based on 2010 poverty guidelines).” [FamiliesUSA.org, September 2010]

Vilsack Would Preserve Tax Cuts For Those Making Under A Million Dollars

Vilsack Only Supports Raising Taxes On Those Making Over $1 Million. From a conversation between Vilsack and the Des Moines Register’s Kathie Obradovich on Iowa Public Television’s Iowa Press:

Obradovich: Would you allow the Bush tax cuts to expire?

Vilsack: Well, yes.  I think we should — for people who are making over a million dollars, I think people who are making over a million dollars should pay a little bit more.

Obradovich: Just over a million?  You wouldn’t make it lower than that, like $200,000 or $250,000?

Vilsack: No, I think millionaires and billionaires should pay a little bit more.  It has always been — when we’ve been in hard times before people who had more, it’s just asking them to do a little bit more, they have always done that.

Obradovich: And is there anybody else that you would want to raise taxes on?  Or raise taxes for?  Corporate taxes, anything else you would like to see —

Vilsack: I think right now that if we ask millionaires to pay a little bit more that’s not too much to ask. [IPTV.org, 6/8/12]

Less Than 1.5 Percent Of Small Business Owners Are Millionaires. From FactCheck.org: “Small-business owners in general are often lauded as job creators. But ‘millionaires’ make up only a tiny fraction of the small-business owners. How tiny a fraction? According to the Treasury experts’ ‘broad’ definition, 1.4 percent, and according to the narrow definition, 0.5 percent.” [FactCheck.org, 11/9/11]

Only 51,000 Of Those Reporting Over $1 Million On Their Tax Returns Make More Than A Quarter Of Their Income From Small Businesses. From USA Today: “The Treasury paper also supplied an alternative ‘narrow definition’ of small-business owners, counting ‘only individuals with active net income from small businesses that equals at least 25 percent of the taxpayers AGI [adjusted gross income].’ That still includes a lot of people who get the majority of their income from sources other than their small-business income. But it gets us a lot closer to the mom-and-pop small-business owner many of us envision when politicians speak of ‘small-business people.’ And under this more precise measure, the millionaires’ picture changes dramatically. Only 51,000 of the 392,000 millionaires were small-business owners under this not-so-narrow definition.” [FactCheck.org, 11/9/11]