If you haven’t already, it’s back to work! It was such a great and enjoyable break. Sometimes I think having a week off is worse than having one day off because you get far too comfortable waking up at your leisure, reading a book, drinking coffee, etc. If that wasn’t bad enough, it gets worse: Your paycheck is lower! That’s right - the take-home from your paycheck is going to be lower because as part of the Fiscal Cliff, the payroll-tax cut didn’t get extended. That means the Social Security deduction for your Federal taxes went back to 6.2% from 4.2%. It was a nice two years at the lower rate, but it was always just a temporary band-aid as part of the Stimulus. Now it’s back to reality! … [Read more...] about Welcome Back to Work – Did You Notice Your Paycheck is Lower?
fiscal cliff
The Future of the U.S. Economy and Why We’ve Still Got a Long Ways to Go
As I write this commentary, there is still no solution to the Fiscal Cliff situation. In all my assumptions about our budget for next year, I have decided to be realistic and assumed that our taxes will go up. Thank you Washington for dropping the ball. Despite whatever efforts have been made, I question if any solution would really fix the problems that revealed themselves in 2008. In a sense, I wonder if we’re simply putting duck-tape on a leaky pipe. Are we actually addressing the real problem? Consider the facts: … [Read more...] about The Future of the U.S. Economy and Why We’ve Still Got a Long Ways to Go