Curious About What Your Paycheck Will Look Like?

In case you are wondering, your first paycheck of 2013 will look the same as your last paycheck of 2012.  So we're all personally not falling off that fiscal cliff just yet.

Clearly there's no deal in Washington.  But the bureaucracy failed to go ahead and release the new tax regulations per the automatic changes that were set to kick in January 1st, I imagine because the Obama White House told them to wait.  Given that everything Obama does is politically calculated, it's pretty easy to understand and explain.  (Obama doesn't want millions of angry people getting after him when their first check of the new year is well short of last year's).

Sometime in the next 2-3 weeks I expect to be helping my payroll clients set up their new Federal tax tables, where most folks will see their rate go up 10 to 15 percent.

But Republicans have concluded that ultimately Obama wants to make sure there's no deal and those tax hikes on everybody go into effect.  I'm pretty sure it will hit sometime before the end of January.  Then Obama will pretend to save everyone from those high taxes, pushing through a bill to cut taxes for everyone who earnes less than $200K. 

It's pure semantics, but folks are easily fooled by such semantics.  Now instead of imposing higher taxes, Obama can claim to have lowered taxes for the vast majority of American taxpayers.  Although the end result won't be any different from what he's been trying to push through for the last 4 years.  He's counting on it being a political victory - or in sports terms, a blowout of the opposing Republicans. 

Those "low information voters" we've been hearing about since the election will fall for it, especially after all the networks trumpet that message 24/7.  Fox News will continue to be called "extreme" for merely trying to point out the truth of the whole affair.

The GOP can't escape the trap that's been set for them.  If they had developed and heavily publicized their alternative plan, assuming that plan was sensible and realistic, they might have had a chance to change the terms of the argument.  But Boehner's been playing Obama's game, and one can never win playing another person's game.

So prepare to be hammered with a higher income tax rate, then miraculously rescued by your messianic president.