Job Tax Plan Lands With a Thud

By JONATHAN WEISMAN And DAMIAN PALETTA, The Wall Street Journal

Republicans on Capitol Hill responded with hostility Tuesday to a White House proposal to allow cash-strapped states to raise unemployment-insurance taxes. But in some states struggling with rising debt and empty coffers, officials said the plan should be considered.

Administration officials say the proposal, to be included in President Barack Obama’s budget plan for the next fiscal year, is intended to help states that so far have borrowed $42.4 billion from the federal government to keep benefits flowing after exhausting the reserves used to pay unemployment benefits.

Some of those 31 states have borrowed so heavily, and repaid the loans so slowly, that they triggered automatic tax increases designed to reimburse the federal government.

Already, employers in three states—Michigan, Indiana and South Carolina—are paying higher federal unemployment taxes because of state debts to Washington. More than half the states could be hit by the end of the year.

To read more, visit:

Short URL: https://reteaparty.com/?p=307

Posted by reteaparty on Feb 9 2011. Filed under Taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry