According to Public Citizen’s Consumer Blog, Compared to 2012, the Just-Enacted Tax Bill Hikes Taxes for Nearly Every U.S. Worker.
A tax increase for middle-class working class families is exactly what the new tax legislation — The American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA) — effectively imposes, compared to what those families had been paying. And the President, the Democrats, and the Republicans knew this when they supported ATRA.
Why are workers’ taxes going up? Because ATRA allowed the 2011 and 2012 payroll tax “holiday” to expire, meaning that, as of January 1, 2013, payroll taxes on wage income increased from 4.2% to 6.2%. But not on all wage income. The payroll tax is doubly regressive: Everyone pays the same rate, regardless of income, and only the first $113,700 in wage income is taxed.
There has been an ongoing effort by the multinational banking interests to privatize the various entitlement programs. The idea seems to be geared toward funneling payroll tax money into high yield (a.k.a. high risk) mutual funds so the managing banks can extract huge fees for their management services. the banks benefit bu placing the risk on the tax payers.