It’s long been speculated, at least since 2010, that Obama will go after our pensions and other retirement monies such as Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA). (See my post of Jan. 9, 2010, on Obama’s trial balloon to convert 401(k)s and IRAs into annuities, “Obama, Hands Off My Retirement $.”)
Now that the Eurozone Powers That Be have succeeded in looting up to 80% of “large” bank deposits in Cyprus, the POS is firing his first post-Cyprus shot aimed at our retirement funds. (See also my posts: “U.S. fed-state govts eliminating private pensions & retirement accounts,” Nov. 27, 2012; and “Obama administration taps into federal retirement funds,” May 24, 2011.)
Typical of his and the Left’s modus operandi, the shot is aimed at “wealthy” IRAs, defined as IRAs worth $3 million or more. This, of course, ensures that most Americans — who don’t have large sums of money in IRAs or even have IRAs at all — will just yawn “Ho hum, who cares?” and sink back into their complacency, thinking Obama’s proposal to limit how much we can sock away in IRAs doesn’t really concern them.
Just wait till he comes after you — as he certainly will. Remember this warning by Thomas Jefferson:
Bernie Becker reports for The Hill that Obama is expected to release a proposed budget this Wednesday that will limit how much wealthy individuals can keep in IRAs and other retirement accounts.
The proposal would save around $9 billion over a decade, a senior administration official said, while also bringing more “fairness” to the tax code because wealthy taxpayers can currently “accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving.”
Under Obama’s proposed plan, a taxpayer’s tax-deferred retirement account, like an IRA, could not finance more than $205,000 per year of retirement – or right around $3 million, in today’s dollars.
The interest generated in IRAs are not taxable, but when the account owner begins withdrawing from his/her IRA, those withdrawals are taxed as income.
~Eowyn