Thursday, December 26, 2013

The Tax Whammy of 2014

(T)here are major storm clouds on the horizon and the coming torrent is all about taxes... - Larry Johnson/No Quarter

I did not realize we were facing so many new taxes or loss of deductions. I know what I am going to do–cut back on spending. But it does not stop there.

New ObamaCare fees coming in 2014 - S.A. Miller and Geoff Earle/NY Post
The cost of President Obama’s massive health-care law will hit Americans in 2014 as new taxes pile up on their insurance premiums and on their income-tax bills.

Most insurers aren’t advertising the ObamaCare taxes that are added on to premiums, opting instead to discretely pass them on to customers while quietly lobbying lawmakers for a break.

But one insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, laid bare the taxes on its bills with a separate line item for “Affordable Care Act Fees and Taxes.”

...But ObamaCare taxes don’t stop with health-plan premiums.

Americans also will pay hidden taxes, such as the 2.3 percent medical-device tax that will inflate the cost of items such as pacemakers, stents and prosthetic limbs.

Those with high out-of-pocket medical expenses also will get smaller income-tax deductions.
Americans are currently allowed to deduct expenses that exceed 7.5 percent of their annual income. The threshold jumps to 10 percent under ObamaCare, costing taxpayers about $15 billion over 10 years.

Then there’s the new Medicare tax.