Government To Confiscate 401(k)s and IRAs For Mandatory Savings Tax? Paul Joseph Watson PrisonPlanet.com Tuesday, November 11, 2008 Under the pretext of combating the financial crisis, Democrats in Congress have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate private retirement accounts and turn them into government-controlled accounts managed by the Social Security Administration, by implementing a new tax in the guise of mandatory savings scheme. Teresa Ghilarducci. Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, testified before Congress last month, proposing that 401(k)s and IRAs be confiscated and converted into universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration. The GRAs would be enforced by means of a mandatory savings tax equating to 5 per cent of an individualâs annual paycheck deposited to the GRA. Social Security and Medicare taxes would still be payable, employers would no longer would be able to write off their contributions and capital gains would be taxable year-on-year. In addition, workers could bequeath only half of their account balances to their heirs, unlike full balances from existing 401(k) and IRA accounts. Justifying government intervention, Ghilarducci cited a 2004 HSBC global survey in claiming, âa third of Americans wanted the government to force them to save more for retirement.â In actual fact, the survey concluded that Americans wanted the government to âenforce additional private savings,â a vastly different meaning than mandatory government-run savings, as Karen McMahan points out. (ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)........... http://www.infowars.com/?p=5913 **************************************************************** Americans have let tons of criminal activity slide by these past months, so I guess they are enabling even more abuse ahead! I wonder how many ACTIVE traders of IRA and 401k accounts will handle this type of potential C H A N G E ?
This has been talked about over the last couple weeks. If it actually becomes reality I expect mass public protest.
True this has already been talked about but this totally stupid idea I thought (as a trial ballon) would just go away, so far that does not seem to be the case.
They just have to scare us a little bit more and they'll have people on the White House lawn BEGGING to sign their 401k's over. People will readily sacrifice their liberty and freedom for security. It's the classic government formula. Just watch. Hell, look how they got the bailout to pass. The people resisted it fiercely, Paulson and crew said "okay, sure no problemo"...gave it a few more days and a few hundred (or thousand) points on the Dow later they run it through again and it passes with flying colors. All they had to do was scare us a little more so we'd see it "their way".