MUST READ ALASKA | THE CENTER SQUARE
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will increase taxes on nearly every American who actually pays taxes, despite claims made by President Biden.
However, 57% of U.S. households paid no federal income taxes for 2021, up from the 44% before the Covid shutdown policies of 2020 and 2021.
Thus, the new tax burden will fall mostly on the 43% of Americans who pay taxes, as well as on businesses.
“When we pass the Inflation Reduction Act, not a single American in the middle class will pay higher taxes,” Biden falsely claimed last week. The truth is Americans will either pay the taxes to the IRS or will pay them through higher prices for basic goods and services.
The Senate split on Sunday when it voted 50 to 50 on the Democrats’ bill, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking 51st vote after more than 15 hours of amendments in an all-night marathon session that went into Sunday afternoon. The House, controlled strongly by Democrats, is expected to vote for the bill on Friday. The cost of the bill is $740 billion.
The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation calculated that nearly all American taxpayers would see increased taxes by 2023. The average tax rates would increase in nearly all income categories, according to its analysis, including lower income individuals such as those earning less than $10,000.
Federal taxes will increase by $1.9 billion on those earning between $50,000 and $75,000 and by $10.8 billion on those earning between $100,000 and $200,000 in 2023.
Overall average tax rates would increase from 20.3% to 20.6% in 2023 alone, according to the analysis.
The bill also includes a provision to hire 87,000 new IRS agents to begin auditing more than a million Americans, including lower income taxpayers. This bill will more than double the size of the IRS, which now has 79,000 full time equivalent employees.
In 2022, the IRS budget was $12.6 billion. The new spending adds $80 billion to the IRS budget, increasing it more than sixfold.
According to the bill summary, “There are no new taxes on families making $400,000 or less and no new taxes on small businesses – we are closing tax loopholes and enforcing the tax code.”
U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who’s spearheaded the bill, says it will pay down the national debt, and lower energy and health-care costs.
“Over the last year, leaders in Washington have ignored repeated warnings about the severe threat of inflation and the consequences of unprecedented domestic spending,” Manchin said. “Despite these concerns and my calls to give the country time to fully realize the impacts of such historic levels of spending and our inflation crisis, many Democrats have continued to push for trillions more in spending to meet a political deadline. Contrary to foolish talk otherwise, America cannot spend its way out of debt or out of inflation,” Manchin said.
The way to do this, Manchin said, is through “tax fairness,” including imposing a domestic corporate minimum tax of 15% on billion-dollar companies or larger. The bill also would spend more money on “technologies needed for all fuel types – from hydrogen, nuclear, renewables, fossil fuels and energy storage – to be produced and used in the cleanest way possible.” The technologies will help reduce domestic methane and carbon emissions and “decarbonize around the world as we displace dirtier products.”
The $400 billion bill won’t raise any taxes, he argues.
But The Wall Street Journal editorial board said that’s exactly what it will do.
The bill is “a tax increase on nearly every American,” the newspaper writes. “Raise the corporate tax rate, and you’re cutting wages and salaries for workers.”
More likely, in this worker-starved economy, businesses will have to increase the wages of workers, which will continue the inflationary trend.
Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee argue the same, warning it’s full of “hundreds of billions of dollars in wasteful inflationary spending [and] won’t reduce the deficit.”
“Rather than reduce inflation, it puts inflation on steroids,” they argue. It includes a “socialist drug price setting scheme [that] will likely cause drug prices to increase for patients for the next few years, all while killing future cures from ever coming to market.”
It also includes “expensive wasteful Green welfare,” they add, including Green New Deal tax credits of $257 billion and solar company loan guarantees of $250 billion that “will worsen our inflation problem, on top of government checks to subsidize luxury electric vehicles.”
Rather than tax the richest companies, it instead includes “handouts to the wealthy,” they argue, including “tens of billions of dollars in Obamacare subsidies [that] will flow to the well-off. It also increases taxes and fees on oil production and methane, which Republicans argue will result in higher gas prices, larger heating bills and higher consumer prices.
“When made permanent, Obamacare bailouts will cost $248 billion, four times higher than what Democrats’ bill admits. Meanwhile, Obamacare has already resulted in higher health care prices and 17 percent health insurance inflation,” the newspaper noted.
Bethany Blankley is a The Center Square contributor.
I trust Joe Manchin’s word over the WSJ Editorial Board.
Of course you do.
Way to go, grandstanding here and proudly declaring you believe a politician, genius. Did you believe the tobacco companies when they told you all those cigarettes weren’t harmful for you?
Tobacco companies are part of Corporate America that the WSJ Board supports. Joe Manchin is for the average american who this legislation will help
Tell me something Frank.
This legislation increases taxes by about $750B, that’s $750,000,000,000, and adds $500B, that’s $500,000,000,000 in new spending.
How exactly will this help the average American?
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Please, I need to get smarter about this stuff. How does nearly a Trillion dollars of new taxes help the average American?
Manchin just whored for a pipeline in his State which was an easy thing for the communists to give him because they know their friends in environazi groups will tie it up in court for at least a decade. He’s a very stupid and self-serving man, like most Democrats, but he does take good care of Pharma for his daughter.
Is it possible for you to express contrary opinions without the excessive language?
I doubt that Senator Manchin slept with Senator Schumer for his pipeline.
Unless someone has a membership card stating their affiliation with the Communist Party, they are NOT communists.
We should stop the pipeline with an environmental damage lawsuit. Alaska should stop every large project in the states that uses this money.
Same mistake that West Virginia made. Somehow another $740 billion is supposed to cure inflation? Who could possibly believe this?
Bet you would trust a fart after eating Taco Bell too
Thank you democrat voters. Democrats and all the OATH BREAKERS who got us all here. GOD has your backs you bet just like you had his television watching clowns.
Elections have consequences. You voted for radical senility over mean tweets.
This is a self inflicted wound.
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Brandon lied… again. He promised not to raise taxes on people making less than $400k a year. He lied and stupid people believed him.
87,000 new IRS workers armed with $4 million in arms and ammo…does this give you pause? Time to become a sovereign citizen and say goodbye to taxes without representation.
We must NEVER refer to this legislation as the inflation Reduction act. it is just the unaffordable care act. And we need to keep asking the left when is inflation going to be reduced after this abomination? Is inflation reduced yet? Is inflation reduced yet? All the while inflation is getting worse. is inflation reduced yet?
Don’t forget about Trump’s tax reform under his “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”. After that change, I have paid much more in federal income taxes than ever before. For the wealthy, banks, and other corporations, the tax reform package was considered a lopsided victory given its significant and permanent tax cuts to corporate profits, investment income, estate tax, and more. For middle income tax payers, like me, Trump’s terrible idea has been a big and expensive problem.
Wrong. Biden’s IRS said some months ago that the middle class received the most benefits from the tax reform legislation. Doubling the standard deduction saved so much money for the middle class since the vast majority do not itemize. My wife and I, definitely in the middle class category, saved thousands of dollars as a result of the tax reform. Maybe you need a better accountant.
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Let me guess. You are of the belief that the tax reforms under Bush Jr. increased your taxes as well.
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Not sure how reducing the lowest tax rates by 5% or more, and doubling credits results in tax increases on the lowest earners, but I bet you are convinced it screwed over everyone except for the richest among us.
Only the Democrats could get away with printing more phony money to pay for their asinine agendas and then call their crappy legislation the Inflation Reduction Act! The only people standing between the Deep State bureaucrats’ plan to wrest total control over Americans is the middle class and the Democrats are doing everything in their power to destroy it.
Any plan to take more and more money out of the private sector and flush it down the sewer in Washington is never a good thing….
The 80 billion dollars and the 87, 000 IRS agents are not for audits. They will be behind a computer setting up the social media credit score tied to your bank.. your faKebook posts will determine what you can buy.
The IRA will reduce drug prices, and fund projects to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It does not raise taxes on most Americans. It does establish a minimum 15% tax rate on corporations that earn over $1 billion per year. It also finds additional IRS agents to catch people who cheat on their taxes. Those all seem like great ideas to me, so I say good job democrats. Republicans voted against the bill because they did not want Joe Biden and democrats to pass a bill that most Americans support. This blog article is repeating right wing propaganda that the bill will raise taxes to try to discredit a bill that is actually a huge benefit to most Americans.
Who do you consider to be “most Americans “ Anyone who this bill won’t affect.
Moron, it raises the tax rates on all income levels….ALL! And double taxing fossil fuels will only sky rocket consumer spending as the majority of all products we use and own are a petro product and will destroy our manufacturing and small business sector. All those costs come down on the consumer. It also comes down on local and state taxes.Prescription costs will sky rocket…it’s only for Medicare savings and medical costs will up….non Medicare will have to absorb the costs. It’s a disaster and ever dem ate just pure evil destroying America and Americans lives! There’s not one dem who’s not a power and money hungry lying Marxist hell bent on destruction as fast as they can….oh that’s right it part of the “ transition” ?
Great Bill, let’s just call it the ” Help China Win , by destroying America Act”
There fixed it for you.
IRS agents indeed. This paves the way for a ” social credit system”.
OK folks. For the cheap seats.
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The legislature is your enemy.
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Get it. Live your live, and vote accordingly.
Democrats,Republicans one party one vote.
I trust Joe Manchin over the WSJ Editorial Board
I trust gas station sushi more than Joe Manchin.
Utter madness. We have record inflation, record deficits, so the communists want even more spending, and a bigger deficit.
The United States is comprised of vast numbers of mentally retarded people who vote for these abject morons. How else to explain that the top four elected officials are Biden, Harris, Schumer, and Pelosi? All are corrupt, all have IQs below 100, all are demonstrably working to undermine our country.
Every Democrat- run city is being destroyed. Chicago had over 800 murders last year. New York lets the criminals run free, as does Los Angeles, Seattle, and Portland.
Now the god damned Democrats are trying to do to our country what they are doing to our cities.
FTA.
We waive our Constitutional guarantees when we volunteer to become “tax payers”. “In 1953, the Internal Revenue Service was created by the stroke of a pen when Secretary of the Treasury changed the name of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (T.O. No. 150-29, G.M. Humphrey, Secretary of the Treasury, July 9, 1953.” There appears to be no congressional or presidential authorization to make this change. The Secretary acted as trustee of Puerto Rico Trust #62 (Internal Revenue) (31 USC Sec. 1321)
There has been no dumber president than Alzheimer’s Joe. He has been lying for 50 years as a US Senator. Now, non-stop as Prez. The IRA is nothing more than a climate bill for the radical Left. But Joe can’t say that because he thinks Americans are too stupid to know the difference. Democrats need to lose everything this fall, so that we can begin the long process of repairing all of the damage inflicted on this country since January 20, 2021. 2024 and the Return of Trump can’t come soon enough.
What a load of nonsense. While inflation is too high, that is because Russia invaded Ukraine, spiking oil prices, and because of government spending during the pandemic, the vast majority of which occurred during 2020 when Trump was in office. But despite inflation, unemployment is very low and over 9 million have found employment since Biden was inaugurated. Biden and the democrats have enacted significant legislation, largely over Republican opposition, to invest in infrastructure projects, reduce prescription drug prices, invest in clean energy projects, compensate veterans exposed to toxic burn pits, and invest in domestic computer chip manufacturing. I struggle to remember any significant legislation passed during Trump’s tenure. He did push through a massive tax cut for the wealthy – which increased the federal deficit. It looks like the DOJ is now investigating Trump for his role in the January 6 insurrection and attempted coup. If he is convicted, he will be ineligible to run for President, which will be the best thing that Chas happened to the a Republican Party since Abraham Lincoln.
Oh it’s better now in the last two years, I just failed to realize it?
I suppose the experimental shots are a success because biden says they are?
Very backwards thinking, I mean thoughts!
I am afraid you are confusing the facts here !! Nearly every measurable benefit to the American society in the past 4 years occurred during or as a result of the Trump Administration. What Jan 6 Insurrection? That was a near total invention of the media , the Biden administration and the governmental agencies now serving as lap dogs to the current administration. The fiasco with the Homer couple proved what a bunch of amateurs the FBI is!! Expect the same from the prosecution of the Jan 6 accused if the government ever gets around to putting them on trial!!
Will these 87,000 new IRS agents will be licensed to carry?
Now that a sitting president is a victim of the weaponization of the FBI, only an idiot cannot see the focus is to totally control the small businesses and those that fail to bow down to the alter of government largesse and union/government domination.
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