BACKDOOR TAXES TO HIT MIDDLE CLASS

Oops!

This story from Reuters has been yanked.

No doubt, the Obama administration brought the hammer down.



The full story may be off the Internet but I'm sure it was published in at least some dead tree copies of newspapers across the country.

Here are some remnants of the story:

From Free Republic:

NEW YORK (Reuters.com) --The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.

In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year -- effectively a tax hike by stealth.

While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.

The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration's Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010.

If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.

The next paragraph of the article, from a forum on the Baltimore Sun website:

Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well... Millions of middle-class households already may be facing higher taxes in 2010 because Congress has failed to extend tax breaks that expired on January 1, most notably a "patch" that limited the impact of the alternative minimum tax.

From Clipmark:

Middle-class families also will find fewer tax breaks available to them in 2010 if other popular tax provisions are allowed to expire. Among them:
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* Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes;
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* The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses;
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* Individuals who don't itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid;
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* The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free.

Business Insider offers an explanation for the story's withdrawal, from a Reuters representative:

According to a Reuters rep, the was withdrawn "due to significant errors of fact."

"The story was wrong on multiple points and should not have gone out," she emailed us. A formal withdrawal will issued will address specific points that were incorrect later today.

I can't wait to see the retraction of all the "significant errors of facts."

FACT: Obama has already raised taxes on the middle class, breaking his "firm pledge" never to raise their taxes.