Report: 90 percent of Americans may face higher taxes

Nearly 90 percent of Americans would face higher taxes next year if Congress permits the nation to hurtle over the “fiscal cliff,” the year-end precipice of tax hikes and spending cuts that threatens to throw the nation back into recession.

A study published Monday by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center finds that taxes would go up by a collective $536 billion next year, or about $3,500 per household, reducing after-tax income by about 6.2 percent.

But the impact would vary significantly by income level, the study found, ranging from a $412 jump for the lowest earners (a reduction of 3.7 percent in after-tax income) to $120,000 for the top 1 percent (a bite of 10.5 percent). Middle-income households — those earning between $40,000 and $65,000 a year — would see their taxes go up by an average of $2,000, the study found, leaving families with 4.4 percent less money to spend.

For most taxpayers, the bulk of the increase would be triggered by the scheduled expiration of tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 during the George W. Bush administration. The expiration of President Obama’s payroll tax holiday, which shaves 2 percentage points off payments to Social Security, comes in a close second.

But the lowest earners would be hardest hit by the expiration of tax breaks enacted as part of Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus package, the study found. Those losses would include an expansion of the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit for working families, as well as a $2,500 credit for college tuition, which would shrink to $1,800 and be available for only two years instead of the current four.