BY PAM LOBLEY

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

NOW THAT'S FUNNY

Well, here we are.  We didn’t fall off the fiscal cliff.  In fact, if you’re lucky, you haven’t heard the phrases “fiscal cliff” or “kick the can down the road” in at least 3 weeks.  Hooray!

But now that we have made it through all that tumultuous tax upheaval, you may find yourself asking … what exactly are my taxes now, anyway?

Good question.

If you make more than $400,000 a year, you can stop reading this article right now.  You’re going to pay more.  Stop surfing the web and get back to work. Try to get a raise.

If you make less than that, read on.  I probably won’t clarify much for you, but since you don’t make $400,000 a year, your job can’t be that important, right?  Might as well kick it for a while and read up on your tax burden.

As for the finer points of the new tax code, the good folks at My 9 TV have outlined them here, and I have taken the liberty of condensing them for you.

Your paycheck is getting 2% more deducted than it used to. You probably already noticed this. This is not temporary, it’s permanent.

You still get a child tax credit of $1,000 per dependent under the age of 17. That should just about cover my milk bill.

Your federal income tax rate is staying the same.  Unless, of course, you qualify for the Alternative Minimum Tax. This is a tax designed 30 years ago to catch the wealthy, but it never really worked because the wealthy always knew how to pay an accountant to avoid it.  For the last few years, the AMT has become your pain in the rear, and now, even though it has been permanently “indexed for inflation” – whatever that means – you will probably still pay some form of it.  No one understands it, but you have to pay it, and it’s never getting repealed.

You can still deduct your car for business or charitable purposes. The rates are 56.5 cents per mile for the business use of a vehicle, 24 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes, and 14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations. Are they kidding? Who is keeping track of all those different types of mileage trips? What if you stop off at a shelter to drop off a donation on your way to a client visit? Congress is full of idiots.

Families can still get an earned income tax credit to offset their taxes if the earn between $13,980 and $50,270.

You can still deduct $2,500 of “qualified” education expenses paid for each “eligible” student. To qualify, the “modified adjusted gross income” for single households cannot be more than $90,000, or $180,000 if married “filing” jointly.  “Quotations” are “mine.”

You can’t deduct medical expenses unless they are 10% of your adjusted gross income.  I pray that does not happen to you.  Besides, health care is so affordable now, um … right?

In sum, you will probably pay about the same, but it’s all just as complicated as ever, so you still need to pay an accountant, or sweat your brains out at a messy dining room table for three weekends in a row.  All these changes are for 2013, so they won’t affect your tax return for 2012. I hope that clears things up.

You’re welcome.

***Pam Lobley writes the “Now That’s Funny” column.  Check out her blog:  Better Living Through Chaos! Follow her on twitter @plobley.