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By Robert T. Dennis
I learned from a news article the other day that my wife and I won’t be receiving the joint $600 Federal 2001 tax rebate President Bush’s protax-cut hype had led us to expect. Instead, because we fell below the necessary "‘taxable income” threshold for the year 2000, we’ll get more like $400.
At first glance, it might seem fair that people of lesser income get less than the full rebate. In our case, however, we didn’t meet the taxable income minimum because of $12,500 of medical deductions due almost entirely to the hideous cost of health insurance (and we are basically healthy) in what was the final year before we both qualified for Medicare.
In 2001, we may well meet the taxable income standard - but the 2001 rebate is to be based on our 2000 tax return. (Ironically, the 2001 rebate program is one of the factors that will make it difficult to fix our nation’s failing health care and insurance system.)
This rebate quirk of the Great American Tax Cut led me to read more closely about other provisions. The whole thing turns out to be a hoax. As explained by the June 3 Washington Post, “the new bill turns the code into a kind of perpetual-motion machine, with rates shifting, benefits coming and going, provisions phasing in and phasing out until taxpayers’ minds reel.”
Nothing better illustrates this than the much-trumpeted “repeal” of the Federal Estate Tax. The so-called “repeal” of the so-called “death tax” is in reality a contrived, dishonest sham. Oh sure, this tax is closed out on Dec. 31, 2009. But, Republicans and Democrats in the Congress passed, and President Bush signed, a law that goes on to reinstate the Estate Tax at the
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