Texas GOP plan to TAX Jobs - Payroll Tax Hike for Business [View All]

[Avalon Sparks]

In order to raise money for education and CUT property taxes (projected cut about $1000.00 on a $200,000 house or in other words 0.5%)

This is the plan:

The proposal offers a massive tax swap: $5.5 billion a year in school property tax reductions in exchange for an increase in state taxes on sales, motor vehicle sales and cigarettes, along with a new payroll tax that would replace the state's loophole-ridden business franchise tax.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/030305dntextaxes.2a38a.html


The basics:

1.1% tax for business on each employee with cap at salary of 80,000. (cap of $880.00 per year)

Increase sales tax (except on food and medicine) from 6.25 to 7.2 (15% increase)

Increase cigarette tax, heard about 1 dollar a pack, article isn't clear on amount.

1.25% tax increase on telephone service

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SO I did my own calculations:

On my husband and myself's combined salary our employers are going to have to pay $710 dollars tax for our labor. Of course this will come out of our pockets because either we won't get a raise this April, or they'll add that much to our health insurance portion that we pay. Either way, it will hit the us, the workers.

6 dollars or so more on the phone a year. Would be 12 bucks if we had a mobile phone too.

If we spend 30K (a little more than the price of a car) a year on things that can be taxed that's $300 more sales tax will pay.

So I'm up to about $1,016 dollars taxes with this plan (lucky I don't smoke)

The property tax we'll supposedly save on our house - $825.00

It's a good thing for the Texas GOP that due to the poor educational system in this country/state that so many Texans can't do basic math.