Who's Getting An Obama Tax Increase?

Not many entrepreneurs will see their taxes go up under Obama's changes, but the ones who do might be the most important to the greater economy. (See my previous post.)

The Washington Post has an interesting look today at exactly who these people are and some of the businesses they run. One of those is Gail Johnson, who runs a chain of preschools and after-school programs. The profit from that business is declared on her personal tax returns, and that pushes her income into the bracket on which Obama plans to increase taxes. Those increases could endanger the workers at her nine campuses, each with 75 employees:

...Johnson's tax bill stands to grow dramatically if Obama were to revive a plan to apply Social Security tax to income over $250,000 instead of capping it at the current $106,800. Because Johnson is an employee and an employer, she would have to pay both portions of the tax, Hurst said, tacking another $30,000 onto her bill.

Johnson said such an increase would force her to consider scaling back operations.

"You can try to pass it on to consumers. But if you raise tuition, you put pressure on family budgets," she said. "For us, we're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea."