President Obama's Weirdest New Taxes

Updated
LAS VEGAS, NV - JANUARY 29: U.S. President Barack Obama delivers his address on immigration reform at Del Sol High School on January 29, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Obama commended Congress for their bipartisanship efforts in fixing illegal immigration policies. (Photo by John Gurzinski/Getty Images)
John Gurzinski/Getty Images

By CHRIS GOOD

President Obama has plenty of big taxes in his budget proposal.

To achieve $1.8 trillion in new revenue, the president suggested a few of the policies he's raised while battling Republicans over the past four years: taxing higher incomes by capping itemized tax deductions, rolling back domestic-production credits for oil companies, instituting the "Buffett Rule" of a 30 percent minimum tax rate for people making over $1 million in a year, and taxing investment managers' "carried interest" profits as regular income top the list.

But the tax code is a jungle of odd rules, and the penny-pinching side of Obama's budget raises some new taxes (or closes some "loopholes") that might not readily occur to most taxpayers filling out run-of-the-mill 1040s this weekend.

As laid out this week by the Treasury Department in its "green book," a massive spiral-bound document that explains tax changes in the White House budget proposal - it is pale green, and 246 pages - here are some quirky maneuvers the president suggests to offset spending and keep the deficit just a bit lower:

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