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Snopes Versus Coco

Quoting Rapides Parish Police Juror Steve Coco via his website, CenlaNews (bold mine):

The FEDS want more of your money as Americans are learning the bad news.

The new health care bill rammed through Congress by the Obama Administration orders a 3.8% sales tax on home sales in 2013.

The tax, verified by snopes, is on “unearned income” or all investment income, plus home sales.

The health care reform bill was a thousand pages and no one had time to read it, including members of congress.

Nancy Pelosi said “we have to pass it to find out what’s in it.”

Well, read it and weep.

That’s hope and change you can believe in. Higher taxes and more federal debt.

This is shoddy reporting.

Snopes.com has never “verified” Mr. Coco’s claim that the health care bill “rammed through” a “3.8% sales tax on home sales in 2013.” The claim is both misleading and false.

From Snopes.com:

You got that? If your family makes more than $500,000 in PURE PROFIT from selling your “home,” yes, you MAY have to pay an extra 3.8% in investment income taxes in 2013. Juror Coco, who fashions himself as a newsman and falsely suggests that his claim is backed up by an independent fact checker, is completely misleading his readers.

It’s worth pointing out: In Central Louisiana, no one has ever resold their personal home and made more than $500,000 in profit. It’s never happened.  With all due respect to Mr. Coco, I don’t believe there is any connection, whatsoever, between the federal debt and a marginal increase in investment income taxes (which would only affect the super-wealthy, minimally and inconsequentially).

So the doom and gloom, the ridiculous grandstanding about taxes and debt: If you want to argue against health care reform from the perspective of a beleaguered family who made more than $500,000 in profit from selling their home, that’s your right. I’d guess, though, that most people would prefer to have an honest and factual discussion.

One more thing: Mr. Coco is, after all, an elected official. He should know the difference between sales, property, income, and capital gains taxes. If he doesn’t, I suggest he exercise some caution before republishing bogus and stupidly conspiratorial chain letters.

Responses

  1. WW Mixon Avatar
    WW Mixon

    Snopes.com could have a field day trying to “verify” things said by Nancy

    Reply
  2. Ace Midnight Avatar
    Ace Midnight

    Lamar, not to get into the contest between Snopes and Coco – you should know that most conservative’s objections (other than the objections to excessive taxation, generally) to levying capital gains on the sale of a private residence (and, in a similar vein, to the federal estate tax) is there is no indexing for inflation. Making that simple change would remove many of my objections to it as a form of taxation. Significant changes would have to be made in trust law, otherwise the wealthy do what they always do, shield their income from such taxation.

    And, regardless of how many or how few an unfair tax affects, does not make it any less unfair.

    Reply
    1. Ace Midnight Avatar
      Ace Midnight

      BTW – indexing an assets increase in value, to the rate of inflation (however it is agreed, the accepted rate, CPI, or whatever, for the particular asset) would also remove any and all objection I have to taxing capital gains at ordinary income rates (though no payroll tax).

      I take this position, because I believe the increase in an assets value do to the natural, erosive process of inflation is not any profit at all.

      Reply
  3. Mung Avatar
    Mung

    So many of these teabaggers have gotten their moronic forwards slammed by Snopes, they now includes a bogus claim that Snopes has verified it, in the body of the e-mail. A couple of minutes of surfing will prove them wrong.

    Reply

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