Word: fica
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...Dunkelberg believes the U.S. government needs to focus on ways to increase consumer spending and, therefore, demand for products. He'd like to see the government suspend the FICA (or social security) withholding tax and extend the Bush tax cuts that are slated to sunset within the next two years...
Second, this is the perfect moment for the other part of many proposals for an energy tax, which is to give the money back to people by lowering the payroll tax. The payroll tax, or FICA, collects about 15% of your wages or salary - half from you and half from your employer. It is expected to bring in close to a trillion dollars in 2009. Using our windfall from plummeting crude-oil prices alone, we could cut the FICA tax by more than half. Including other forms of energy would bring in even more. (See pictures...
...FICA is, in effect, a tax on job creation. It applies to the very first dollar earned by a minimum-wage worker, but most of it tops out at an annual income of about $100,000 and doesn't apply at all to income from investments. For most Americans holding jobs, FICA now takes a bigger chunk of their income than the income tax itself. And yet it rarely enjoys the tender concern of tax-cutting Republicans, who prefer to concentrate on tax breaks for capital gains. Cutting the FICA tax in half, for workers and for employers, would make...
...argument against all this is that FICA finances Social Security payments, and the connection between money in and money out helps keep Social Security secure. There's a simple answer: among the many problems we now face, the danger that a majority in Congress will gang up against Social Security benefits must surely rank...
...half of 2008 but is now shut down, making it harder to securitize credit-card debt," says Arthur Wilmarth, finance professor at George Washington University Law School. Banks, forced to keep more debt on their books, are less willing to lend to anyone who doesn't have a high FICA, or credit quality, score. The result is a vicious cycle of borrowers being hit with higher interest rates, hair-trigger late fees and curtailed credit lines just when they need funds the most. Higher food and gas prices have contributed to that burden...