My annual federal taxes went up $4200 overnight!

[Anonymous]

How much is my annual income?

My blowhard Facebook friend just posted my topic sentence as his status. He's been posting these kind of comments since prior to the election, but I've just ignored him. Reading Jeff's posts made me believe he was exaggerating because Jeff does the math that shows little, if any, tax increase for most people. I went to high school with this guy and find it hard to believe he could be pulling in a million/year (he lives in a very rural location). But I want to know. Ball park what is his annual income if his annual federal taxes increased $4200 just with this fiscal cliff deal?

[Anonymous]

Op again...or is he FOS?

[Anonymous]

Well, DH and I are going to be paying more because the payroll tax rate went back up to its normal 6.2% and because the personal exemption is phased out if the AGI is $422,000 or over.

[Anonymous]

Our HHI is $160 and I estimate our taxes will increase about $3400 a year now that the payroll tax cut expired. So it's likely your friend doesn't make anywhere near $1M. That said, he (and I) will survive. It will be much harder for people who make half of what we do or less. $1000 a year on a HHI of $50K to support a household of 3-4 people will feel significant to people who live paycheck to paycheck and already stretch their budget to cover housing, food, transportation, etc etc.

[Anonymous]

Probably around 450k?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100348254

[Anonymous]

Hard to say..lots of deductions are gone and does federal include ss....roughly 39.6-35=.046 4200/.046= 91,300; single 491k or joint 541k. (someone will tell me what I got wrong)

[Anonymous]

I'm trying really hard not get pissy with my idiot family and friends. It's getting harder and harder every day. I used to be a moderate Republican. I can say now without hesitation that I have jumped ship. I will NEVER vote for another Republican again.

[Anonymous]

For what it's worth, our HHI is about $160,000. Our taxes will "go up" (and they aren't going up, they are returning to the correct levels) about $1784 per year. That's $148 a month. I think we can swing it.

[Anonymous]

The expiration of the payroll tax cut will result in an increase in $4200 for two income families, each with income over 106K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The expiration of the payroll tax cut will result in an increase in $4200 for two income families, each with income over 106K.

Strongly doubt your numbers are accurate, but you do need to rephrase that to read "expiration of the payroll tax holiday."

Payroll taxes were never cut. The government just stopped collecting some of them to give people more money to spend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For what it's worth, our HHI is about $160,000. Our taxes will "go up" (and they aren't going up, they are returning to the correct levels) about $1784 per year. That's $148 a month. I think we can swing it.

How do you calculate $1784? I thought the tax was on individual incomes, not combined HHI? We have $160K combined and assume a much higher "increase."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The expiration of the payroll tax cut will result in an increase in $4200 for two income families, each with income over 106K.

Strongly doubt your numbers are accurate, but you do need to rephrase that to read "expiration of the payroll tax holiday."

Payroll taxes were never cut. The government just stopped collecting some of them to give people more money to spend.

It was a 2% reduction in the rate, so a total $2100 per year for a salary of 106K. Times 2 for dual income families. I understand it is not a tax "increase", since it was never intended to be permanent. But I'm sure that is the tax increase the original facebook poster is referring to.

[Anonymous]

Did they complain 2 years ago when they went down $4200 overnight?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The expiration of the payroll tax cut will result in an increase in $4200 for two income families, each with income over 106K.

Strongly doubt your numbers are accurate, but you do need to rephrase that to read "expiration of the payroll tax holiday."

Payroll taxes were never cut. The government just stopped collecting some of them to give people more money to spend.

No, those numbers are correct. 2 percentage points on $113,200 is $2,264. Multiply that by two and it's $4,500. So, back to OP's point, anyone who says their taxes are going up $4,500 has two workers earning about $115,000 each.

As for pp and references to the payroll tax "holiday" -- I agree on one level, but the reality is that people do adjust to the additional money in their paychecks. To suggest that they won't feel a sting of having it removed is disingenuous and you know that. Alternatively, it's a tacit acknowledgement that it was a failure as policy b/c either people noticed the extra money (stimulus) or they did not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much is my annual income?

My blowhard Facebook friend just posted my topic sentence as his status. He's been posting these kind of comments since prior to the election, but I've just ignored him. Reading Jeff's posts made me believe he was exaggerating because Jeff does the math that shows little, if any, tax increase for most people. I went to high school with this guy and find it hard to believe he could be pulling in a million/year (he lives in a very rural location). But I want to know. Ball park what is his annual income if his annual federal taxes increased $4200 just with this fiscal cliff deal?

That could be two federal workers in the SES.

Dh earns $120,000. His taxes go up $2,200 or so.
DW earns $100,000. Her taxes go up $2,000.

Household taxes are $4,200 higher.