Exclusive: The Obama tax-cut calculator. Yes, tax CUT.

You’ve heard all the Republican rhetoric and heat on talk radio about President Obama raising your taxes since he took office. Rep. Kevin Brady, the top House Republican on the congressional Joint Economic Committee, said the proposed White House budget would add “$1.6 trillion in new taxes on professionals and small businesses.”

Well, the Obama administration wants to tell the other side of the story. With that April tax deadline approaching, the White House is about to roll out an interactive way to see how much Connecticut wage earners’ tax burden will . . . go down . . . this year because of the payroll tax cut contained in the bipartisan tax deal reached in December.

The White House plans to unveil the online tax-cut calculator — which works a lot like TurboTax or other tax programs — later this morning. But here’s an exclusive sneak peek for Hearst Newspapers and Hearst TV audiences (embedded above).

Try it out. For a married couple earning $50,000, with two dependent children, the tax benefit is $1,000. Families earning more than $50,000 will get a bigger break, although the benefit tapers off after the first $106,800 in wages earned by an individual.

Most Americans (an estimated 159 million workers) will receive a payroll tax cut of 2 percentage points, from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent, on their first $106,800 in wages.

As you calculate your wage-tax savings, the White House also reminds you that “the middle class tax cuts that the President kept from expiring” will save most of you thousands of dollars more.

Then again, the Republicans can counter that everybody’s taxes would have gone up by thousands of dollars if Obama hadn’t cut the deal in December to extend the Bush-era tax cuts.

One way or another, the payroll tax cut won’t be reflected on the bottom line of your refund on April 18 (the savings come out of your paychecks). But who can argue with getting a few more bucks in your checks for a change.

Richard Dunham