KENSINGTON, MARYLAND. July 27, 2011 -– The hype surrounding the ongoing negotiations about fixing America’s debt crisis is causing American taxpayers to lose sight of the fact that they face massive tax increases in the foreseeable future, says Samuel N. Asare, senior financial strategist with the DC-area Laser Financial Group, LC.
“At the end of the day, any serious and practical solution must contain some mix of spending cuts and tax increases,” Asare explains. “However, taxpayers must remember that in the past, Washington, D.C. has been unable to achieve any credible spending cuts, which makes increased revenue (i.e., tax increases) the easier, more attractive and more practical alternative, so to speak.”
Most politicians do not want to have anything to do with massive spending cuts, which must necessarily involve tampering with today’s Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits, but they would vote in a heartbeat to increase taxes, especially when that increase is positioned to impact wealthy taxpayers, states Asare.
“Many pundits are completely missing the point that Republican lawmakers are NOT opposed to tax increases. As far as I understand things, they are simply opposed to the timing of the tax increases, because the fact is that taxes must increase, at some point,” Asare adds.
It would therefore behoove those American taxpayers whose nest eggs take the form of yet-to-be-taxed plans, such as 401(k)s, 403(b)s and traditional IRAs to seriously reexamine their retirement-income strategies and begin to explore nontraditional alternatives that can legally insulate their future income from tax hikes, because those days are just around the corner.