Credit: White House. U. S. Government Work, Public Domain. Presenter: Brian Deese, Deputy Director of the National Economic Council
Credit: White House, U. S. Government Work, Public Domain
Point 1: “…income tax rates will stay low permanently
for middle-income families…”.
Point 2: “…will
increase tax rates on the wealthy…increased tax rates and reduced tax
benefits.”
Point 3: “…This
agreement cuts the deficit. It builds on
the $1 Trillion in spending cuts signed into law by the President in 2011
through the Budget
Control Act. This new agreement cuts
the deficit by $737 billion by asking the wealthiest to begin to pay their fair
share. (More.)”
Point 4: “As part of
this deal a group of tax cuts that help middle-class families keep more money
in their pockets and afford to pay for higher education was extended. The Child Tax
Credit, the Earned
Income Tax Credit, and the new American
Opportunity Tax Credit will stay in effect for at least the next five
years.”
Point 5: “…continue
making investments that create jobs in domestic clean energy and innovation
because the agreement extends the Production
Tax Credit and the Research
& Experimentation Tax Credit.”
Point 6: “Lawmakers
agreed to extend emergency unemployment insurance for 2 million people looking
for work.”
Point 7: “This
agreement doesn't cut Social Security benefits, Medicare or Medicaid. That’s because the President stood strong
against reducing our deficit on the backs of seniors, students, the poor, and
working families.”
We apologize for using links from the Wikipedia in our summary notes. We will try to post links to the actual laws/acts later in the post or the next post.
For the purposes of our examination we would like to post a part of page one of Act H. R. 8...
Credit: Government Printing Office, U. S. Government Work, Public Domain.
The above is what you should see when go the "Certified PDF" of H. R. 8. Warning: The total length of the original PDF is 59 pages and is unsigned at this writing. The above image is an "inactive" screen capture of the first page of the Act.
The Act itself is broken up into nine comprehensive Titles with multiple sub-sections. We attempted to compare the provisions of the Titles with the points provided by the White House Blog.
Title I is probably the most important to all as it covers tax relief to the "99%" and genuine increases to the "1%". Some of those increases and reduced deductions to the "1%" seem relatively small but are really there and have genuine effect as Law. Below is an image capture of the first part of Title I on taxes/taxation.
Credit: Government Printing Office, U. S. Government Work, Public Domain.
Title I is broken down into four sections (sections 101 through 104) and an annotated version is provided below:
'One Hundred Twelfth Congress
of the
United States of America
AT THE SECOND SESSION
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday,
the third day of January, two thousand and twelve
An Act
Entitled the ‘‘American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012’’.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE, ETC.
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the ‘‘American
Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012’’.
(b) AMENDMENT OF 1986 CODE.—Except as otherwise expressly
provided, whenever in this Act an amendment or repeal is
expressed
in terms of an amendment to, or repeal of, a section or
other
provision, the reference shall be considered to be made to a
section
or other provision of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.
(c) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents for this Act…”
TITLE I—GENERAL EXTENSIONS
Sec. 101. Permanent extension and modification of 2001 tax
relief. (Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Relief,_Unemployment_Insurance_Reauthorization,_and_Job_Creation_Act_of_2010) (And: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111hr4853enr/pdf/BILLS-111hr4853enr.pdf).
Sec. 102. Permanent extension and modification of 2003 tax
relief. (Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_and_Growth_Tax_Relief_Reconciliation_Act_of_2003
) (And: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title26/pdf/USCODE-2011-title26-subtitleF-chap77-sec7518.pdf)
(And: http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/46C535.txt)
(And: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/1445)
(And: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009)
Sec. 103. Extension of 2009 tax relief.
Sec. 104. Permanent alternative minimum tax relief'.
It should be obvious that an examination of the codes in the Act gets a little complicated.
But, if you are part of the "99%" you need not worry about the PERMANENT strikeouts in Section 101 of taxable rates, strikeouts of taxable deductions and high value estate taxes as these only apply to those with high income figures. These new codes appear to be permanent but, of course, could always be repealed or revised by Congress.
Section 102 of Title I does cover PERMANENT tax relief and is mostly based on revising/reviving the "The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003". Apparently, Section 102 like some other sections, appears to be a rewrite of old law into the "new" H. R. 8 Act.
Section 103 of Title I does not offer permanent tax relief in the matters of the "AMERICAN OPPORTUNITY TAX CREDIT", CHILD TAX CREDIT and the EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT. But we suppose we should be thankful for small blessings.
Section 104 of Title I is PERMANENT and appears to offer tax relief on a variety of "alternative products". These currently include decreased taxable amounts, certain home mortgages, energy efficiency, some plug-in electric vehicles, and a variety of other credits.
That basically covers Title I of the Act and some references back to the White House Blog posts. Much of this, but not all, is covered in the video with Mr. Deese. Most all of the points made by the White House and Mr. Deese appear to be correct based on the facts of the new Act. We suspect your eyes may be starting to cross by now. We will try to cover the other eight Titles in future posts.
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