Where Do the Presidential Candidates Stand on Taxes

The Kiplinger Tax Letter did a great summary of where the Presidential candidates stand on tax issues...it is a great newsletter if you want to keep up with what is going on with taxes in Washington

Kiplinger.com: The Kiplinger Tax Letter

On individual income tax rates:

• Clinton and Obama would raise rates on high-incomers, probably those making over $250,000.
  
• Clinton wants to reinstate the 39.6% top rate that applied in the 1990s.
• She and Obama would preserve Bush's tax cuts for other taxpayers... the higher child tax credit and marriage penalty relief, for example.
  
• McCain vows that he'll fight to retain the lower rates for all filers.

On investments:

• McCain would keep the 15% maximum rate on dividends and gains.
• Clinton would allow the top rate on gains to return to 20%.
  
• Obama wants a rate near 25%.
  
• Both Clinton and Obama would tax dividends as ordinary income.
  

The alternative minimum tax:

• McCain supports repealing the tax.
  
• Clinton and Obama would keep the AMT from hitting middle class filers, but Obama says that he'd increase other taxes to make up the lost revenue.
  

Estate tax:

• The current $2 million exemption is set to rise to $3.5 million in 2009. Clinton favors retaining that figure after 2009.
  
• McCain wants to increase the exemption to $10 million and cut the top rate to 15%.
  
• Obama opposes full repeal but hasn't offered any specifics.
  

Corporate taxes:

• McCain wants to lower the current 35% top rate to 25%.
  
• Clinton and Obama both oppose tax rate cuts for corporations and would raise revenue by closing "loopholes" used by oil and gas firms.
  

Health care:

• Clinton would limit the current income tax exclusion of employer-provided coverage for upper-incomers and would give a credit to low-incomers to buy insurance.
  
• McCain would eliminate the exclusion for everyone and replace it with a credit of up to $5,000 to buy coverage.
  
• Obama would tax employers that don't offer meaningful coverage to workers.
  

Huckabee has a different plan. He'd levy a 30% national sales tax to replace the individual income tax, corporate tax, estate and gift taxes plus Social Security and Medicare taxes. Nearly all sales would be taxed, including sales of new homes, services and purchases made by governments. Monthly rebates would go to all taxpayers to help offset their tax burden. IRS would be abolished. States would get the option to collect the tax. If they declined, the feds would step in and monitor the revenue stream.

Comments

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Its great to know the tax proposal by different competitors in the race of presidential post, i think one can judge the candidate with such information provided. Thanks for providing the valuable data and i will be looking forward for the new updates...........