GOP pushing tax scam, taxing pensions

U.S. Senate Republics are pushing frantically to follow the lead of House Republicans in passing legislation that would drastically reshape the American tax code—tilting it ever more toward corporations and the super-rich. 

To help pay for the tax breaks for the wealthy, they’re going to drastically undermine already fragile public pension funds—placing the retirement security of millions of public employees in jeopardy.

The Republican bill would require all public employee pension funds to pay a tax on their investment income at the very high rate of 39%. The new tax would go into effect on January 1, 2018, with no advance time for preparation destabilizing public pension funds all across the country. No such tax has ever been imposed on public pension funds before.

Given the underfunding problem that already besets so many public pension systems, there’s no doubt that this new tax is a very deliberate attempt to jeopardize the pensions promised to public employees all across this country.