It could range from $40 to $200 a month.

Whether we tumble off of a sharply-delineated "Cliff" or slowly slide into a slump, there will be an impact with the next paycheck or two.

If you're paid on December 31 for work performed in December you might have a month to wait for the impact, but I suspect a lot of us will see it begin next Tuesday on the Jan. 1 payday.

There are two parts to this fiscal hit. The income tax part will mean a withholding tax at a rate that was typical in the 1990s, and there are fewer credits and interest deductions. The lower rates we have paid for the 10 or 12 years, whenever Dubya put it into effect, are what are called the "Bush-era tax cuts." He put them in place as a gift to his rich friends but as a sop gave the Average Joe a tax cut also (to get away with the one he really wanted to give millionaires.) In the Obama administration we have seen a lower withholding on the Social Security taxes, part of a stimulus move that was renewed once and now expires - in an increase in withholding from 4.2 to 6.2 percent.

From U.S. News and World Report:

So here's how the major aspects of the fiscal cliff are likely to affect ordinary people, assuming they go into effect beginning January 1, 2013:

An increase in payroll taxes. This is the simplest tax change to compute. The payroll tax withholding, which is used to fund Social Security, is due to rise from a reduced level of 4.2 percent--which was set temporarily in 2009--to the normal level of 6.2 percent. The payroll tax will apply only to the first $113,700 of earnings in 2013. So you can simply calculate what two percent of your income will be in 2013, to estimate the additional amount you'll pay. For the typical earner, a two-point increase will amount to about $700 in added tax payments per year.

Income tax hikes. All rates are scheduled to revert to the higher levels of the 1990s, which for most workers would mean an increase of 3 to 5 percentage points in the tax rate they pay. But this won't necessarily affect anybody right away, because the government doesn't automatically increase the amount of tax payments withheld from your paycheck. In fact, higher rates would only hit taxpayers in 2014, when they file their 2013 tax returns. So if rates rise temporarily and Congress then lowers them retroactively to 2012 levels, nothing would change for most people.

Also, there is that pesky Alternative Minimum Tax. Meant to get more tax from high-earning individuals, but somehow it is now in play for those with earnings as low as $34,000 or more.

The italics are mine, to show that we'll have to wait and see when the higher income tax withholding begins. In my state when those amounts were about to shift in the last big standoff about 18 months ago, they withheld from my paycheck just to play it safe (that was before the social security withholding was extended.)

All of this because the GOP wants to protect their very wealthy friends who earn so much they wouldn't know how to spend it all paycheck to paycheck. It's only fair that I lose about $200 a month so some rich guy doesn't have to pay more taxes.

SRS