The article reports:

It’s a near-perfect fiscal storm — occurring just after a major national election, no less. Among the tax breaks that are expiring: the Bush tax cuts that occurred in 2001 and 2003, the payroll tax cut, and the tax cut from the 2009 stimulus.

That’s not all. The estate tax, known more accurately as the Death Tax, rises to 55 percent. The 100 percent exemption for business investment goes away. Also among the soon-to-be-missing: the patch that lawmakers passed to ensure that the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) doesn’t snare more and more middle-income earners (instead of the super-rich it was originally designed for).

This $494 billion increase is unprecedented in scope. To give you a better idea of how big it really is, consider that all of the tax hikes in Obamacare — a huge tax hike in and of itself — add up to $502 billion over a 10-year period. Taxmageddon will extract almost that much from Americans next year alone. Saddling a “jobless” recovery with this monster hike is spectacularly bad policy.

This disaster can be avoided in one of three ways–the present Congress can stop it by extending the Bush tax cuts, we can elect a new Congress that will stop it as soon as they are sworn in, or Congress could redo the tax code in a transparent manner that is fair to all taxpayers The first option is highly unlikely, the second option is extremely necessary, and the third option will happen right after pigs fly.