Obama Vs. McCain - Tax Plans

This is the best non-democrat/non-republican view of our presidential candidates I have seen yet. This shows the difference between the two candidates’ tax plans using the Marginal Tax rate.

“Each person's marginal tax rate is the amount that they pay in tax on their last dollar of income. The impact of the tax paid on that last dollar is important economically because…” http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/23724.html

This article was written by Dr. Robert Carroll, (http://www.taxfoundation.org/staff/show/134.html) who is Vice President for Economic Policy at the Tax Foundation. “The mission of the Tax Foundation is to educate taxpayers about sound tax policy and the size of the tax burden borne by Americans at all levels of government. From its founding in 1937…” http://www.taxfoundation.org/about/

Remember when reading this article who we are talking about and how much money they make. The latest data we have is from 2006 when 135,719,160 tax returns were filed. Of those returns, this shows who is paying our income tax.

Top 1% of filers pay 40% of the tax collected. (about $370,000 AGI and up)

Top 5% of filers pay 60% of the tax collected. (about $150,000 AGI and up)

Top 10% of filers pay 71% of the tax collected. (about $1050,000 AGI and up)

Top 25% of filers pay 86% of the tax collected. (about $64,000 AGI and up)

Bottom 50% of filers pay 13% of the tax collected.

Senator Obama

Here are some of the factors of Senator Obama’s tax plan and how it would affect the Marginal Tax Rate of Taxpayers. (More on Senator Obama’s plan http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/23724.html)

As has been extensively reported, three components of the Obama plan would raise the marginal tax rates of higher-income taxpayers.

1. Roll back the reduction in the top two tax rates enacted in 2001 and 2003. These changes would increase the top two tax rates from 33 percent to 36 percent and 35 percent to 39.6 percent.

2. Restore the phase out of the personal exemption for higher-income taxpayers (the so-called PEP provision) and the limitation of certain itemized deductions for higher-income taxpayers (the so-called Pease provision).

3. Increase Social Security taxes paid by higher-income taxpayers. It is unclear exactly what is being proposed by Senator Obama on Social Security taxes, and his proposal may not even take effect until 2018, outside of the ten-year budget window. Nevertheless, it is assumed here that he would increase Social Security taxes by 4 percent to illustrate the likely effects of his plan on marginal tax rates.⁶

Senator McCain

Here is a small summery of how Senator McCain’s tax plan would affect the Marginal Tax Rate of Taxpayers. (More on Senator McCain’s plan http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/23724.htm)

Senator McCain's tax plan also affects marginal rates, but for very different reasons. His tax plan includes only two individual tax proposals and only his health tax credit has a material effect on effective marginal tax rates. The McCain health tax credit—$5,000 for family coverage and $2,500 for individual coverage—replaces the current income tax exclusion for employer-based health insurance. The repeal of this exclusion has the effect of increasing taxpayers' taxable incomes, which then pushes some taxpayers into higher income tax brackets. This effect is shown in Figure 4 which compares marginal tax rates under current law to those that would prevail if McCain's tax plan became law. Note the leftward shift of the marginal tax rate schedule. Some taxpayers' effective marginal tax rates go up and others go down.

Pay close attention to Figure 2 for Obama and Figure 4 for McCain to see where your tax rate would go depending on who is elected president. Remember to VOTE and always make an educated decision.