UPDATED (ACCIDENTALLY OMITTED BODY OF DIARY NOW RESTORED)
Did you know that the 2010 "ObamaCare" Health Care Law contains a 3.8% REAL ESTATE SALES TAX that goes into effect beginning in 2013, costing (for example) a homeowner selling a 100,000 residence $3800? I didn't either, until a good friend of mine who's a hard-core true-believer GOP wingnut forwarded this information along to me in an email. (Why he'd pass this along to me, a progressive, I'll explain later on).
RELAX (this claim is a wildly untrue distortion spun from a small kernel of fact), BUT NOT TOO MUCH because this superficially plausible, but grossly fraudulent piece of propaganda is being actively grassroots-propagated by the Republican Party itself, and not merely some loosely affiliated Tea Party group. The intent is to lay out a convincing-sounding talking point that GOP partisans can use to spread this disinformation in talks among their less politically active friends and neighbors, whenever talk turns to political subjects.
Both the substance of the wildly distorted claim and an accurate analysis of the actual provision involved follow below the fold.
FIRST, here's the (brief) email my hard-core GOP partisan wingnut friend forwarded on to me. It was fully intended to be propagated forward to as many people as possible, and not in any sense a private email, so I have no compunction about repeating it here. EVEN THOUGH this particular piece is obviously one of those classic right-wing emails written by a strictly unofficial partisan rather than anyone acting in any official capacity with the GOP, nonetheless FORTUNATELY the author included a link to the original source document which IS from gop.gov, which you can follow. The purpose of that original gop.gov document is precisely to create a plausibly convincing "talking point" which partisans can use not just among themselves, but in conversations about politics among less politically active or informed friends and neighbors.
Will you ever sell your house?
Did you know that if you sell your house after 2012 you will pay a 3.8% sales tax on it?
That's $3,800 on a $100,000 home etc.
When did this happen? It's in the health care bill. Just thought you should know.
SALES TAX TO GO INTO EFFECT 2013 (Part of HC Bill) Why 2013? Could it be to come to light AFTER the 2012 elections?
REAL ESTATE SALES TAX
So, this is "change you can believe in"?
Under the new health care bill - did you know that all real estate transactions will be subject to a 3.8% Sales Tax? The bulk of these new taxes don't kick in until 2013 If you sell your $400,000 home, there will be a $15,200 tax. This bill is set to screw the retiring generation who often downsize their homes. Does this stuff make your November and 2012 vote more important?
Oh, you weren't aware this was in the obamacare bill? Guess what, you aren't alone. There are more than a few members of Congress that aren't aware of it either
http://www.gop.gov/...
Why am I sending you this? The same reason I hope you forward this to every single person in your address book. VOTERS NEED TO KNOW.
NOW HERE'S AN ACCURATE EXPLANATION OF THE ACTUAL GERM OF ACCURATE TRUTH from which the above gross, fraudulent distortion was generated. It's from a source which is light-years apart from being in the progressive camp, the National Association of Realtors
In a nutshell, here's what the tax actually involves:
- It's a medicare "surtax" of 3.8% on "unearned net investment income", which can potentially, though only rarely in practice, include sales of primary residences. It's NOT a sales tax at all, but very close in nature to a capital gains tax surcharge on certain high-income individuals.
- The lifetime real estate exclusion of 500k is preserved unaffected by this surtax. Thus, it can only potentially apply to sales of a primary residence for over 500k, and further all deductions, exclusions, expenses, etc which would be deductable under existing income tax principles are unaffected and preserved under the new law.
- The tax ONLY applies to the LESSER of: a) gain on sales amounts in excess of the 500k exclusion (and after other deductions, etc); or b) adjusted gross income for current tax year of over 200k for single individuals, or 250k for married individuals.
So, the tax ONLY applies to a fairly small handful of relatively high-income people, whereas the GOP propaganda fraudulently makes it sound as if it would apply to ordinary middle-class people, and most likely at one of their most economically vulnerable moments, post-retirement. The shameless lies the GOP is willing to spin are truly without any bounds.
BTW: why would such a "good friend" of mine who is a hard-core GOP partisan, forward this sort of thing along to me? Not to taunt me or persuade an opponent over to his side; he doesn't even know that I'm an ardent progressive. Nor have I misrepresented my political inclinations to him at any point. Rather, he was one of my dearest, closest childhood friends growing up in small-town North Carolina from about age 3 through about junior year in college, when life's circumstances caused us to drift apart and completely lose contact with one another for over 30 years. About a year ago, purely by chance I ran into him down at the beach one day, and we picked back up the friendship (he lives in another town and we don't see each other face to face but every few months). Back 30 years ago, I was pretty right-leaning politically myself, but I dramatically changed and he apparently didn't. He still presumes I'm like-minded, though our face-to-face dealings (and most of our emails back and forth) are simply swapping jokes and swapping news about people we both know. We haven't really talked politics at all. He'll remain my friend for life, even though his political inclinations scare the hell out of me.