OH MY GOD! I FOUND 12 TRILLION DOLLARS

In tax money coming due from IRA's, 401Ks and other retirement accounts coming due over the next thirty years and taxable at the time the owner reaches a certain age or starts using the money. This "forgotten" tax is bad news because the big spenders in Washington will spend twenty trillion of the twelve before we can say "stop". It renders all discussion of Medicare, Drug Bill, and everything else moot. Will be big news perhaps by tomorrow. "Found" by an economist at Stanford. Nobody, and I mean NO BODEEE, even thought of this revenue.

But that budget forecast is incomplete and perhaps overly pessimistic because it doesn't take adequate account of the growing wealth -- and future tax payments -- of America's Investor Class. Ordinary Americans and their employers are socking away huge sums in tax-deferred accounts such as Individual Retirement Accounts, 401(k)s, and traditional pensions. The total in such accounts is roughly $11 trillion today, with hundreds of billions in new contributions pouring in every year. Under current law, retirees will pay ordinary income taxes as they withdraw money from these accounts. Surprisingly, official long-term budget estimates ignore most of these projected tax receipts -- and the amounts are simply staggering.

In a new, as-yet-unpublished paper, Stanford University economist Michael J. Boskin estimates that the value of these deferred taxes through 2040 is roughly $12 trillion in today's dollars. By comparison, the official estimate of the unfunded Social Security liability is $3.5 trillion in today's dollars, while the unfunded Medicare liability for hospital insurance is $5.9 trillion.

LINK HEREfor the full story.