IBD
Americans’ 401(k) plans: An untapped source for tax revenue?
As Washington debates what to do about the fiscal cliff that it foolishly created, many potential sources of new revenue will be thrown on the table. One of them is likely to be 401(k) plans. …
But many in Washington see our investment accounts not as the expressions of well-planned, disciplined decisions but as untapped reservoirs of wealth they can drain to fix the problems that they caused.
The tax protection that 401(k)s have now can be wiped out by grasping politicians who refuse to do what’s right, which is to severely cut spending. …
President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, for instance, proposed lowering the cap on the amount workers could place in their 401(k)s without incurring taxes.
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Do it. I mean it, DO IT.
One week later you would be able to see the flames of DC from Saturn.
Bishop on November 30, 2012 at 12:37 PM
Liberals: Wow! That’s great (as long as they don’t touch mine)!
darwin on November 30, 2012 at 12:38 PM
I don’t see any way around this. It satisfies liberals’ greed and for bonus points it removes yet another pillar of personal responsibility and forces people back to government retirement programs.
John_Locke on November 30, 2012 at 12:39 PM
This is what America voted for.
Rebar on November 30, 2012 at 12:39 PM
That seems very hopeful. Most people with 401(k) plans are probably considered ‘wealthy’ by whatever sliding scale of bullsh*t is being sold at the time.
John_Locke on November 30, 2012 at 12:40 PM
They do that, then its time to liquidate it, penalty be damned.
After that, Ag+Au+Pt with a nice “come and get them” sign out front.
Gatsu on November 30, 2012 at 12:42 PM
Well, under the guise of OCare they’ve already lowered the limit for HSA contributions.
They’ll probably try this too. Other socialist countries have done the same…
CorporatePiggy on November 30, 2012 at 12:42 PM
It wouldn’t surprise me if they went after the ira’s and saving accounts we have in banks/etc. either! And why stop there, if we have more than the ‘allowed’ amount in our checking accounts, get the money till it is the ‘allowed’ amount?
L
letget on November 30, 2012 at 12:43 PM
I did all the ‘right’ things – college degree, steady advancement in jobs, delayed marrage and kids, always lived below my means, paid off my house, saved and invested. I have kept working after retiring so I would not have to dip into my 401Ks and stocks. But I am really no better off than someone who spent every penny living ‘high off the hog’, has no savings and is deeply in debt. Why? Because the rules have changed. The people we elected have destroyed our money system; starting with Nixon when he stopped backing the dollar with Gold.
Now the government has massive debt and is franticly printing money to keep the Ponzie scheme going. It is inevitable that inflation will soon runaway, the government will be ‘have to’ takeover our 401Ks, freeze our bank accounts and seize any Gold in order to control the panic. How do I know? Because it has happened before. See the exerpt below:
” OBSERVING GERMANY’S HYPERINFLATION ANNIVERSARY. “In 1920, a loaf of bread soared to $1.20, and then in 1921 it hit $1.35. By the middle of 1922 it was $3.50. At the start of 1923 it rocketed to $700 a loaf. Five months later a loaf went for $1200. By September it was $2 million. A month later it was $670 million (wide spread rioting broke out). The next month it hit $3 billion. By mid month it was $100 billion. Then it all collapsed.” That’s how this kind of thing happens . . . slowly, and then all at once.”
Uniblogger on November 30, 2012 at 12:46 PM
Go for it you morons and watch us crash the stock market when we all cash out.
JPeterman on November 30, 2012 at 12:47 PM
AmeriKa is Argentina now.
The glory of Argentina is in the latrines.
Schadenfreude on November 30, 2012 at 12:48 PM
Do it. I mean it, DO IT.
One week later you would be able to see the flames of DC from Saturn.
Bishop on November 30, 2012 at 12:37 PM
I have an ample supply of Gasoline.
ToddPA on November 30, 2012 at 12:48 PM
Not any longer.
rbj on November 30, 2012 at 12:48 PM
Yeah sure we will. If I had a dime for every time I heard something like that I could’ve paid for Romney’s campaign.
MelonCollie on November 30, 2012 at 12:49 PM
And I have an ample supply of matches. Please feel free to help yourself.
JPeterman on November 30, 2012 at 12:51 PM
Argentina is on the brink again.
Once you are governed by crooks who retire on your money having gotten rich off of cronyism….and the government controls either directly thru spending or indirectly thru regs…well, the graft is just overpowering
r keller on November 30, 2012 at 12:54 PM
Sure, steal the retirement of the middle class. Democrats could care less about us.
Blue Collar Todd on November 30, 2012 at 12:56 PM
First let’s go after Congressional pensions and increase rates tax post-governmental income of former members of Congress.
Vera71 on November 30, 2012 at 12:59 PM
Oh I’m sure these thieves will put in some bs retroactive language that will insure you are more than penalized. And, of course, they will exempt themselves.
txhsmom on November 30, 2012 at 12:59 PM
This idea might provoke a bit of a backlash.
forest on November 30, 2012 at 1:00 PM
It’s all play money to liberals. They think it will always be there. It just magically appears.
There is zero chance of this being passed.
Although I thought that there was zero chance of the election for president of some clown who served less than two years in the Senate.
So, my record is shaky, I admit.
SteveMG on November 30, 2012 at 1:05 PM
And, of course overgenerous Federal pensions are off limits. I suggest that we begin by tar and feathering federal officials. I’ve got the tar and feathers, someone grab a federal government employee.
SC.Charlie on November 30, 2012 at 1:05 PM
Relax and hang out at the back, we can take care of it.
Bishop on November 30, 2012 at 1:06 PM
I’m not an advocate of violence but I would expect people to riot if this happens. This is a line Washington should know not to cross.
OT: By the way, I finally got myTwitter account back and as I suspected and confirmed by Twitter I was falsely reported as a spammer by Obots to stifle my speech. And libs say they care about free speech?
jawkneemusic on November 30, 2012 at 1:06 PM
When will they think of a Birth Tax?
portlandon on November 30, 2012 at 1:08 PM
What good is your cash? You can’t earn any interest on it and our dear government can crank up the printing presses any time they want.
SC.Charlie on November 30, 2012 at 1:09 PM
It’s already here. The Obamacare mandate.
jawkneemusic on November 30, 2012 at 1:10 PM
Yup, federal pensions, first.
Fallon on November 30, 2012 at 1:11 PM
Does Twitter then suspend those who make false reports?
Fallon on November 30, 2012 at 1:13 PM
I have family in Czech Republic and they are not on the Euro.
JPeterman on November 30, 2012 at 1:18 PM
Since I was laid off from an airplane company (after Harry Reid and the Dems started demonizing people who had private airplanes), I found another job for $30,000 less.
When I had the other job, I saved quite a bit in my 401k. I’ve since rolled it over to an IRA.
Since I got married and am losing money farming, we are paying no income taxes. Sorry, AGI is too low. We are rolling that money from the IRA to a Roth IRA, paying the taxes along the way (0% right now). Then, then next year, we are pulling it out of the Roth IRA with no penalty, to pay for our land.
If we can get the land paid off before going broke, it will have been a brilliant strategy. If we go bust and have to sell everything to pay our debts, it was f’ing stupid.
cptacek on November 30, 2012 at 1:18 PM
How could decades of planning and concerted effort, that vastly increased the federal government’s own power and wealth, have been accomplished “foolishly?”
The word you’re bumbling you’re bumbling around for there is “MALICIOUSLY.”
logis on November 30, 2012 at 1:18 PM
As far as I know, they don’t. But I did ask them about that and if they would kindly review their spam reporting process as its being abused in its current state.
jawkneemusic on November 30, 2012 at 1:21 PM
When I toured Europe with my band Czech was one of my favorite countries to visit. Nice people, decent food and your dollar can go a long way there.
jawkneemusic on November 30, 2012 at 1:23 PM
Before we get all panicky about this, let’s remember that the IBD’s editorial page fluctuates between hysterical and truly unhinged, and that the one thing that politicians love more than money is being re-elected, which they won’t be if they go after 401ks (which no elected official of either party has even floated as a trial balloon). I suggest you ignore this bit of fear-mongering and return to worrying about whether or not your dentist will still create jobs if his taxes go up.
urban elitist on November 30, 2012 at 1:28 PM
no…..h$ll no….
cmsinaz on November 30, 2012 at 1:31 PM
This is not a new idea. They have been working on a way to steal this money since at least 2008.
jawkneemusic on November 30, 2012 at 1:32 PM
Determining support for any new tax is getting easy.
Most of the 50% who pay no federal income tax and do not have a 401K will have no problem with this proposal. Many who pay some federal income tax but do not have a 401k will have no problem with this proposal.
The socialist demagogues in the Dem party are dividing the nation into people who want someone else’s taxes to go up and those who do not want anyone’s taxes to go up. They are already near the 50% tipping point. They have most of 50% who pay no federal income tax on their side.
The Dems are deliberately seeking to divide America and set one group of Americans up against the other. It will not end well.
farsighted on November 30, 2012 at 1:39 PM
The smartest thing the Czech’s have done so far, stalling on converting to the Euro and at this point, I doubt they will ever convert. A couple thousand koruna’s will feed you well for days.
JPeterman on November 30, 2012 at 1:39 PM
“Vote for revenge”
“Punish our enemies”
visions on November 30, 2012 at 1:42 PM
Not sure what you were linking to — all I got was a cnbc article making the same pints as the op-ed. Though it is true that if Congress adopts the Romney/republican strategy of capping deductions, rather than raiding rates, it would likely make some or all of many people’s retirement contributions subject to income tax. Capping them at $17k, as some Republicans seemed to suggest during the campaign, would subject my entire 401k contribution to income taxes.
urban elitist on November 30, 2012 at 1:44 PM
I wonder how much of this talk about tapping 401ks and IRAs is simply rumor floated by the administration designed to panic those of us who have them into cashing out now so that the government can collect the taxes. Don’t fall for it, they know they’d never get away with doing it.
Trafalgar on November 30, 2012 at 1:48 PM
It’s not a rumor floated by the Administration, it’s a rumor floated by the American Society of pension Professionals and Actuaries. And even they can’t seem to come up even a tenuous tie to the Administration.
urban elitist on November 30, 2012 at 1:52 PM
Two other things that people aren’t talking about much is the charitable deduction and the estate tax. The estate tax will probably go up no matter what we do. If the charitable deduction is cut or capped, it will mean a huge change for a lot of the non-profs.
I would rather end the deduction for state and local taxes, since that would fall more heavily on the blue states that voted for more “revenue”. Let them have it, good and hard. It’s what they want.
juliesa on November 30, 2012 at 1:52 PM
I’d like to see the charitable contribution scrapped. It’s regressive in that gives rich people a greater benefit than poor and middle class — because the deduction took increases lock step with the marginal rate of the taxpayer — a d because I don’t want to subsidize your charities and you don’t want to subsidize mine.
urban elitist on November 30, 2012 at 1:56 PM
Leave my old man outta this, 20+ years in the Marine Corps and another 15 at an agency that has been integral to the indentification, investigation, and termination of terrorists, doesn’t qualify him for tar and feathers. It qualifies him for our thanks for a job well done. If your talking “grab a federal bureaucrat”…..well then, carry on.
StompUDead on November 30, 2012 at 1:57 PM
This is one of the Columbia communists who has been pushing to convert private retirement accounts to SSI part deux.
Outright confiscation would cause a revolt, and as we’ve seen, Dear Leader and his minions are more clever than that. I can picture them engineering a severe market crash, then offering the scared sheep the option to trade their accounts for a government annuity based on the pre-crash account value. Then the remaining accounts could be placed under increasing regulatory burdens, making them unworkable. The regime wants us all helpless and dependent of course.
Hopefully all those Wall Street bribes will save us.
Kungfoochimp on November 30, 2012 at 2:00 PM
I’m pro choice on this issue. People should be able to choose to keep the money they’ve saved and invested.
dczombie on November 30, 2012 at 2:01 PM
You don’t subsidize charity by ‘not’ taxing on money earned. It’s MY money first. Only after I give to charity/tithes etc should the government be allowed to recieve taxes from it.
StompUDead on November 30, 2012 at 2:02 PM
Urban troll seems a little worried about his 401k. Suggests getting rid of charitable deductions instead.
farsighted on November 30, 2012 at 2:03 PM
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