Recently I was exploring the Tax Foundation’s website and discovered a handy federal income tax calculator to help me figure out how much more I would owe Uncle Sam in taxes if America goes over the so-called fiscal cliff at the end of 2012.
(In the cinema of my mind, the fiscal cliff appears as a buffalo jump, where panic-stricken bison were stampeded to their deaths. A traditional buffalo jump was usually a bluff, and the same may be true of the fiscal cliff.)
The calculator showed that if all of the so-called Bush tax cuts expired next year and were replaced by the “Obama proposal,” my total federal tax burden would increase in percentage terms by more than one-third, and in dollar terms would cost me about $140 a week. That was worse than I expected.
You can access the Tax Foundation calculator by clicking here. And you can read a breakout of the proposed tax changes by clicking here. For a fascinating spreadsheet of historical marginal tax rates since 1913, click here.
