I thought all those …

I thought all those tax cuts would reduce the federal coffers.

After three years of rising federal budget deficits, a surge of April tax receipts brought unexpected good news to fiscal policymakers — the tide of government red ink appears to be receding.

The Treasury Department this week reported there would be a $54 billion swing from projected deficit to surplus in the April-to-June quarter, after an unanticipated gush of tax payments poured into the Treasury before the April 15 deadline. That prompted private forecasters to lower their deficit projections for the fiscal year that ends in September.

Yes, there’s always a surge in April as folks settle up the taxes from the previous calendar year, but if you believed what Democrats keep saying about the tax cuts you’d have thought that the April take would be lower. Instead there were billions more than anticipated.

Here’s more about the turnaround, but I want to highlight a sentence below in bold to ensure some folks don’t miss it.

April, however, turned out to be a far better month than anticipated. Taxpayers were confronted with unexpected tax bills, many from capital gains and the alternative minimum tax, a parallel income tax system designed to hit the rich but that is increasingly pinching the middle class. The Treasury announced this week that it will repay $42 billion in federal debt in the third April-to-June quarter, instead of borrowing $12 billion.

Remember, when Democrats say they just want to increase taxes on the rich, hold on to your wallet. A change in capital gains taxes does not just hit the rich. If you have capital, they want to gain from it.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!