When a tax cut expires, the practical effect is a tax increase. And a slew of tax cuts - $400 billion for 2013 - expire on Dec. 31: All of the Bush-era rate reductions; smaller tax cuts that periodically expire for businesses and individuals; and the 2-percentage-point cut in payroll taxes that Mr. Obama pushed in 2010, which increased an average worker's take-home pay by about $1,000 a year.
Also, 28 million taxpayers - about one in five, all middle- to upper-income - would have to pay the alternative minimum tax in 2012, raising their taxes more. That is because Congress has failed to pass an inflation adjustment, as it usually does, to restrict the number of taxpayers subject to the alternative minimum largely to the affluent.
