Report: Biden's Inflation Reduction Act will hurt 401(k)s and lead to higher energy costs

By 
 December 30, 2022

The rising cost of living has taken a toll on Americans, with 55% of respondents in a recent Gallup poll saying that higher prices have have caused them financial hardship. What's more, 13% said that hardship has been severe.

Yet rather than providing them with relief, a new report suggests that President Joe Biden's policies are about to make their problems worse.

Energy getting more expensive

In an article published on Thursday by the conservative group Americans for Tax Reform, writer Mike Palicz laid out how additional taxes will jack up the cost of energy and consumer goods in the new year.

One of them is a tax on American oil and gas development found in the ironically named the Inflation Reduction Act. It imposes additional costs on methane production, something which will impact businesses and homeowners.

A report put out in August by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office argued that "end users will bear more of the cost increase from a charge for methane emissions by paying higher prices."

What's more, Palicz pointed to a letter sent by Congress to the American Gas Association which warned that the methane tax would amount to a 17% increase on an average family’s natural gas bill.

Also included in the legislation is a 16.4 cents-per-barrel tax on crude oil and imported petroleum products. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham warned during an interview with CNN this past summer that the move will "increase cost at the gas pump."

New tax on stock buybacks

Then there's a 1% non-deductible excise tax on stock buybacks, something Palicz said "harms the retirement savings of any individual with a 401(k), IRA or pension plan" as well as those with union retirement plans.

"When companies perform stock buybacks, these investors are the ones who benefit," he wrote. "A tax on buybacks could dissuade companies from conducting this action and negatively impact retirement savings."

Further, Palicz argued that "[t]he tax will put U.S. employers at a competitive disadvantage with China, which does not have such a tax."

He then recalled how "Democrats imposed a 15 percent corporate alternative minimum tax on the financial statement income of American businesses reporting $1 billion in profits for the past three years."

"A Tax Foundation report from last December found a 15 percent book tax would reduce GDP by 0.1 percent and kill 27,000 jobs," Palicz added.

According to Fox Business, President Joe Biden promised during a speech in August of 2021 that Americans who make less than $400,000 per year would "not pay a single penny" in higher taxes under his administration.

Yet as Palicz explained, the evidence says they are about to find out just how worthless the president's pledge really was.

" A free people [claim] their rights, as derived from the laws of nature."
Thomas Jefferson
© 2015 - 2024 Conservative Institute. All Rights Reserved.