Capital gains tax

[gat]

MCCAIN
0% on home sales up to $500,000 per home (couples). McCain does not propose any
change in existing home sales income tax.

OBAMA
28% on profit from ALL home sales

How does this affect you? If you sell your home and make a profit, you will pay
28% of your gain on taxes. If you are heading toward retirement and would like
to down-size your home or move into a retirement community, 28% of the money you
make from your home will go to taxes. This proposal will adversely affect the
elderly who are counting on the income from their homes as part of their
retirement income.

DIVIDEND TAX

MCCAIN 15% (no change)

OBAMA 39.6%

How will this affect you? If you have any money invested in stock market, IRA,
mutual funds, college funds, life insurance, retirement accounts, or anything
that pays or reinvests dividends, you will now be paying nearly 40% of the
money earned on taxes if Obama becomes president. The experts predict that
'Higher tax rates on dividends and capital gains would crash the stock market,
yet do absolutely nothing to cut the deficit.'

INCOME TAX
MCCAIN (no changes)
Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $31,250

OBAMA (reversion to pre-Bush tax cuts)

Single making 30K - tax $8,400
Single making 50 K - tax $14,000
Single making 75K - tax $23,250
Married making 60K - tax $16,800
Married making 75K - tax $21,000
Married making 125K - tax $38,750

Under Obama, your taxes could almost double!

INHERITANCE TAX

MCCAIN 0% (No change, Bush repealed this tax)

OBAMA Restore the inheritance tax

Many families have lost businesses, farms, ranches, and homes that have been in
their families for generations because they could not afford the inheritance
tax. Those willing their assets to loved ones will only lose them to these
taxes.

NEW TAXES PROPOSED BY OBAMA

New government taxes proposed on homes that are more than 2400 square feet.
New gasoline taxes (as if gas weren't high enough already)
New taxes on natural resou rces consumption (heating gas, water, electricity)
New taxes on retirement accounts, and last but not least....
New taxes to pay for socialized medicine so we can receive the same level of medical care as other third-world countries!!!

[bluffmanxx]

The truth is bad enough, i don't know why the people who do these chain e-mails have to make shit up.

factcheck.org

Home Sales: The claim that Obama would impose a 28 percent tax on the profit from "all home sales" is false. Both Obama and McCain would continue to exempt the first $250,000 of gain from the sale of a primary residence ($500,000 for a married couple filing jointly) which results in zero tax on all but a very few home sales.

Capital Gains Rate: It's untrue that Obama is proposing a 28 percent capital gains tax rate. Obama said in an interview on CNBC that he favors raising the top rate on capital gains from its present 15 percent to 20 percent or more, but no higher than 28 percent. And as for a 28 percent rate, he added, "my guess would be it would be significantly lower than that." Furthermore, he has said only couples making $250,000 or more (or, his policy advisers tell us, singles making more than $200,000) would pay the higher capital gains rate. That means the large majority of persons who pay capital gains taxes would see no increase at all.

Tax on Dividends: Another false claim is that Obama proposes to raise the tax rate on dividends to 39.6 percent. Dividends currently are taxed at a top rate of 15 percent, and Obama would raise that to the same rate as he would tax capital gains, somewhere between 20 percent and 28 percent but likely "significantly" lower than 28 percent. This higher tax also would fall only on couples making $250,000 or more or singles making more than $200,000.

Taxing IRAs and 529s: Contrary to the claim in this e-mail, raising tax rates on capital gains or dividends would not result in higher taxes on any investments held in Individual Retirement Accounts or in popular, tax-deferred "college funds" under section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code. The whole point of such tax-deferred plans is that dividends and capital gains are allowed to accumulate and compound tax-free, and neither Obama nor McCain proposes to change that. And as previously mentioned, any capital gains or dividend income from stocks, bonds or mutual funds owned outside of tax-deferred accounts would continue to be taxed at current rates except for couples making over $250,000, or singles making more than $200,000.

Estate Tax. The claim that Obama proposes to "restore the inheritance tax" is also false, as are the claims that McCain would impose zero tax and that Bush "repealed" it. McCain and Obama both would retain a reduced version of the estate tax, as it is correctly called, though McCain would reduce it by more.

The tax now falls only on estates valued at more than $2 million (effectively $4 million for couples able to set up the required legal and financial arrangements). It reaches a maximum rate of 45 percent on amounts more than that. It was not repealed, but it is set to expire temporarily in 2010, then return in 2011, when it would apply to estates valued at more than $1 million ($2 million for couples), with the maximum rate rising to 55 percent.

Obama has proposed to apply the tax only to estates valued at more than $3.5 million ($7 million for couples), holding the maximum rate at 45 percent. McCain would apply it to estates worth more than $5 million ($10 million for couples), with a maximum rate of 15 percent.

The claim that Obama would impose "new taxes on natural resources" may refer to his support for a cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions, which indeed would impose large costs on industries burning coal, gas or oil and, indirectly, on their consumers. But McCain also supports cap-and-trade legislation, and even coauthored an early version of a bill that reached the Senate floor this year. Obama's plan would give the federal government more of the revenue from auctioning pollution permits than McCain's plan. Whether cap-and-trade amounts to a "tax" is a matter of interpretation. The fact is neither McCain nor Obama call it that.

There is also some truth to the claim that Obama would impose "new taxes" to finance his health care plan, depending on your interpretation of "new." He has said he would pay for much of his plan "by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for people making more than $250,000 per year, as they are scheduled to do." That would certainly be a tax increase for those high-income persons, compared with what they are paying now. But whether that's imposing a new tax, or just letting an old one come back, depends on your point of view. It may well be that Obama will eventually propose tax increases to finance some of his plan. We've noted before that the "cost savings" that he says will finance much of his plan are inflated and probably won't materialize, according to independent experts we consulted. But it's wrong to say that he's proposing such taxes now.

[spaceboy761]

Note to Self: Do not get primary voting information from 700 Club.