Yes, yes, I know, recovering from late-night reveling readers, President Walking Eagle promised during his campaign that there would be no new taxes under his watch. If we elected him, he would most assuredly keep middle America safe from the greedy avarice of that evil and secretive federal government.
And pigs fly.
As this new year and a new decade gets off to its shaky start, courtesy of those silly, misunderstood “unprivileged enemy belligerents” labeled as common criminals by the administration faster than it takes His Transparency to address the American people about it and given the full rights of American citizens to due process under our laws even when they attempt to enter the country under dubious legality while setting their underwear on fire on a plane several thousand feet in the air, every one of us is going to feel the soaring rhetoric of hope and change as we begin preparations for the annual headlong run into the textbook definition of federal bureaucracy. The filing of our annual income tax returns.
Let’s hope Turbo Tax can keep up. Effective today, the following tax breaks are no longer available:
- Deduction of state and local general sales taxes (section 164) (Personal Tax Incentives)
- Additional standard deduction, up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for couples, for state and local property taxes (section 63) (Personal Tax Incentives)
- Research tax credit and alternative simplified credit (section 41) (General Business Tax Incentives)
- New markets tax credit (section 45D) (Community Assistance Provisions)
- Empowerment zone incentives (sections 1391 and 1202) (Community Assistance Provisions)
- Renewal community tax incentives (sections 1400E, 1400F, 1400I, and 1400J) (Community Assistance Provisions)
- District of Columbia Investment Incentives (sections 1400, 1400A, 1400B, and 1400C) (Community Assistance Provisions)
- Net disaster loss designation and $500 limit per casualty for personal casualty losses attributed to federally declared natural disasters (section 165) (General Disaster Relief Provisions)
- Expensing for qualified disaster expenses (section 198A) (General Disaster Relief Provisions)
- Biodiesel and renewable diesel incentives (section 40A) (Energy Incentives)
- Alternative motor vehicle credit for heavy hybrids (section 30B) (Energy Incentives)
And effective today, the following new taxes will be levied:
- Increased exemption levels for the individual alternative minimum tax (section 55) and personal tax credits allowed against the AMT (section 26)
- Exclusion of unemployment compensation benefits from gross income (section 85)
- Alternative fuel mixture tax credit (section 6426(e))
- Reduced estimated tax payments for small businesses (section 6654(d)(1)(D))
No one is left out; from business owner to laid-off worker, there’s something in here for everyone and the sole purpose is to suck more of your money into the federal coffers so the liberal progressives can hand it out to their special interest “victims”. Current example being Numbnuts Abdulmutallab; charged under U.S. criminal law instead of by the military he must have a lawer, you know. And why not one paid for by you and I, instead of his wealthy family? And why not a corrupt lawyer in a corrupt federal jurisdiction at that? Welcome to the affirmatively-graduated Ivy League ideology of “equality” for all.
But I digress.
Now, His Transparency is going to tell you that it’s not HIS fault that middle-class America sees new and higher taxes today. No, no; don’t blame HIM. He promised, but even though Nancy’s Nuthouse managed to pass legislation to prevent these tax hikes and new taxes from going into effect, high-roller Harry in the Senate found it more important to concern them with appropriating your tax dollars for planes the Pentagon doesn’t need and cutting those backroom, closed-door secret deals to get 60 votes for his unconstitutional version of “health care reform” instead of addressing less-pressing problems like, oh, the economy. So of course Obama simply must pass the buck on this one. Those unrepresenting representatives in Congress are the ones that didn’t do their jobs and do right by you. He promised. Really. He. Did. It was Congress who didn’t deliver.
Cue those busy flying pigs.
It was President Walking Eagle’s “historic agenda” that HE mandated as top priority. Pesky little things like these tax hikes and tax cuts that break his promises never even entered his head.
Welcome to 2010.