10-17-08, 11:13 am
Taxes have emerged as an issue in the 2008 presidential race, with John McCain charging Barack Obama with planning to raise taxes, despite the Obama campaign's pledge to reduce taxes for 95 percent of working families.
To help clarify the differences in the tax proposals of the two candidates, the Obama campaign this week launched an easy-to-use online tax calculator to help voters learn what they will save on their taxes under the Obama plan as opposed to McCain.
See here:
A typical family of four earning between $50,000 and $75,000 annually that pays a mortgage, is saving for retirement, and has childcare expenses, the tax calculator shows, would get more than $1,700 in tax breaks under the Obama plan. This is close to three times more than under McCain's plan, which would total less than two dollars a day. In addition, such a family under Obama's plan may also be eligible for additional tax breaks related to their retirement savings.
Obama has also pledged to eliminate income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000, and give struggling homeowners a tax credit worth 10 percent of the interest they pay on their mortgage. According to non-partisan analysis, Obama's plan would provide middle-class families with the lowest income tax rates in decades.
By contrast, McCain's plan offers little or nothing to lower tax bracket families and seniors. The video accompanying the tax calculator points out that McCain's tax policies would provide the most benefits to the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations, such as the major oil companies. McCain has proposed to give $45 billion in tax breaks to the 200 largest corporations in America, including $4 billion in giveaways to oil companies that are already making record profits. McCain has also pledged to reward corporations that ship jobs out of the country, but has refused to give any tax relief to 101 million households.
In addition, McCain's health care plan proposes to create a new tax on employee health benefits, extracting some $3.6 trillion from working families, according to some estimates.
See the video here:
