Posted on 06/22/2011 9:49:29 AM PDT by 92nina
...Tax brackets and other tax benefits are tied to the consumer price index (CPI). There are several ways to measure CPI, including a measurement which is less fast-paced than the CPI measurement used today. The idea is to use this alternative definition of CPI to slow down the inflation adjustments in the tax code. This would mean that tax bracket thresholds would grow more slowly. This would be a legislated tax change scored by the Joint Tax Committee as a net tax hike, and for good reason: it would change tax law, forcing people to pay more in taxes than they otherwise would have. It's also a partial return to "bracket creep," the 1970s phenomenon whereby people were pushed into higher tax brackets even though their real standard of living didn't rise at all. This idea can of course be part of a discussion of comprehensive and revenue-neutral tax reform, but stand-alone it is a tax hike.
Read more: http://www.atr.org/partial-return-bracket-creep-tax-hike-a6270#ixzz1Q1VZQH8I
(Excerpt) Read more at atr.org ...
Take this article and others I found to the fight to the Libs on their own turf; put the Left on the defensive at at Digg and at Reddit and in Delicious and Stumbleupon
After bracket creep went away, deduction phaseouts began. This would give us both. If we a tax rate increase, too, or extended pension benefit means testing, we could easily see marginal rates hitting 100%.
. . . thanks to President Reagan. Before Reagan took office, the top bracket was for anyone making over $100,000 per year, and the rate on that bracket was 70%. If it wasn't for Reagan, anyone making over $100,000 today would be paying 70% of their income to the Feds (plus another 7.5% in SSI and Medicare). Without indexing, inflation would eventually push everyone into the highest tax bracket.
Reagan’s indexing of tax rates may be his biggest contribution to slowing inflation... before tax rates were indexed it was in the government’s interest to encourage inflation (13% a year under Jimmah). Bracket creep was/is a backdoor tax hike (higher income, lower purchaing power)! Reagan’s actions reduced this government motivation and greatly slowed inflation. Inflation is always a result of a government repudiating its debt (inflate their way out of debt). Reagan knew this and it remains one of his greatest accomplishments. The Dems hate this but have not been able to totally reverse it (yet).
Bringing back Jimmy Carter’s inflation tax - bracket creep !
The $h!tiest thing is fule and food cost are now excluded from the CPI so we already have some form of an inflation tax !
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