Obama Tax Hike: Payroll Tax Is Going To Hurt

From the Las Vegas Sun: Keeping hard-earned money in the pockets of workers, President Barack Obama has been saying, is why it’s imperative Congress makes sure income tax rates don’t rise for the middle class.
“The last thing folks like the folks up here on this stage can afford right now is to pay an extra $2,000 in taxes next year,” Obama said Monday, flanked by about a dozen representatives of the middle class at the White House.
But one tax lawmakers aren’t discussing — the payroll tax — is set to increase at midnight, costing the average taxpayer about $1,000 a year....
Nowhere in the midst of the debate, however, have lawmakers been arguing over payroll tax cuts, which are set to expire at midnight and stand little to no chance of being resuscitated.
Payroll taxes are a flat tax rate that goes to fund Social Security and Medicare.
Two years ago, lawmakers included a 2 percentage point reduction in the payroll tax rate as part of a larger, two-year tax bill that extended Bush-era tax cuts for everyone.
Before the 2010 deal, payroll taxes were 6.2 percent, deducted from the first $106,800 of workers’ paychecks. Inflation raised that ceiling to $110,100 in 2012.
But for the last two years, the payroll tax rate has been 4.2 percent.
Last December, the White House and Democrats staged a campaign to preserve the expiring payroll tax cut, asking individuals to detail what the average $40-per-paycheck tax hike would mean to them. Over the course of a year, that adds up to about $1,000 lost to taxes.
Congress extended the payroll tax cut for another year.
This year, however, there is no similar campaign under way. The payroll tax cut has not been an element of any of the proposals to avert the fiscal cliff.  http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/dec/31/payroll-tax-hike-take-1000-bite-out-average-worker/
Chalk up another Obama tax hike.  With ObamaCare and the increased payroll tax, our paychecks, those of use in the middleclass who barely make it paycheck to paycheck, there will be a lot of suffering going on.
Thanks to Obama, another tax hike courtesy of the Federal government.