State of the Union Address: Obama Wants to Raise Taxes on Wealthy to Finance Tax Credits

President Obama wants to increase taxes on top earners which will include investment tax rates so that the government can fund new tax credits and other measures that he thinks will help the middle class. Included in his proposal is the removal of tax break on inheritances.

He will have a hard time with this since the Republican-controlled Congress are opposed to any tax raise since they claim that any tax increase will negatively affects economic growth at a time the U.S. cannot afford it.

Whitehouse believes that the new tax raise if implemented would raise $320 billion over the next decade, while adding new provisions cutting taxes by $175 billion over the same period. It will also fund the free community college for 2 years that is expected to cost $60 billion over 10 years.

Obama wants to end the “trust-fund loophole” on inheritances that save billions of dollars from taxation yearly. This will require estates to pay capital gains taxes on securities at the time they're inherited. It would also raise the top capital-gains tax rate to 28% (from 23.8%) for family with an annual income of above $500,000.  Banks with assets over $50 billion will be taxed and the fund will be used to finance tax incentives for middle-income earners, which includes $500 credit for families in which both spouses work, additional child care and education credits and incentives to save for retirement.

Republican leaders said they also wanted to reform the country's complicated tax code, however they don't agree with most of the proposals the president will outline on Tuesday. For example, most Republicans want to lower or eliminate the capital gains tax and similarly want to end taxes on estates, not expand them.

Republicans support the fee on the banks with more than $50 billion assets. This new fee is the same proposal from former Republican Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, who led the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. Camp's plan, however, was part of a larger proposal to lower the overall corporate income tax rate.

If it would help the working middle-class and not the lazy-class, I'm all for it.