Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, is working to repeal a tax increase on investment income among high earners that’s intended to help pay for the new health care law.
Crapo on Thursday became an original co-sponsor of Economic Growth and Jobs Protection Act of 2010, authored by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and also co-sponsored by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kans.
S. 3712 would repeal a 3.8 percent surtax on investment income for individuals earning over $200,000 annually and families earning over $250,000. The tax on interest income, capital gains, dividends, annuities and rents is projected to raise $123 billion between 2013 and 2020.
The income thresholds, however, are not indexed to inflation, and Crapo says over time the surtax will be levied on real income below those levels.
“We would have thought that Congress would have learned its lesson after the disaster with the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax),” said Crapo, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, in a news release. “If it wasn’t enough of a mistake to enact a new investment tax increase at a time when our struggling economy is in such need of new investments, failing to even index the thresholds for inflation just means that millions of middle income Americans will be facing another new tax increase in just a few years.”
Coupled with the prospect of the expiration of the Bush tax cuts in January, Crapo said the surtax would damage economic growth, discourage savings and investment, reduce productivity and depress wages.
Read the complete story at idahostates.com