If you were looking for another reason to dislike ObamaCare — to add to many others addressed in this forum — the latest Fortune offers one: “stealth taxes.”
In an article not yet posted online, Janice Revell details “three of the most glaring” examples of taxes that have “morphed into tax traps for upper-middle-income earners.”
Two of the new stealth taxes were created by last year’s landmark health care reform bill. First, the Medicare payroll tax is going up. The tax is now 2.9% on all wages; employers and employees each pay 1.45%. Starting in 2013, individuals making more than $200,000 (and couples making more than $250,000) will have to kick in an additional 0.9% on wages above that amount.
A second, much heftier increase also takes effect in 2013, in the form of an unprecedented new 3.8% Medicare tax on investment income. It will strike filers whose “modified adjusted gross income” — roughly speaking, wages plus investment income — tops $200,000 for individuals or $250,000 for couples. (The tax will apply to whichever is less: investment income or the amount by which modified adjusted gross income exceeds the income threshold.) Investment income will include taxable capital gains, dividends, interest income, annuities, royalties, and rents. The thresholds for both of the new Medicare taxes will not be indexed for inflation. So they’ll snag an increasing number of taxpayers over time.
