Obamacare’s Tax Hike Train Wreck

[JBond]

MOAR taxes please!

Obamacare Medical Device Tax: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will make everything from pacemakers to artificial hips more expensive. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,980-1,986)

Obamacare High Medical Bills Tax: Before Obamacare, Americans facing high medical expenses were allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceeded 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). Obamacare now imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. Therefore, Obamacare not only makes it more difficult to claim this deduction, it widens the net of taxable income. According to the IRS, 10 million families took advantage of this tax deduction in 2009, the latest year of available data. Almost all are middle class. The average taxpayer claiming this deduction earned just over $53,000 annually. ATR estimates that the average income tax increase for the average family claiming this tax benefit will be $200 - $400 per year. To learn more about this tax, click here. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,994-1,995)

Obamacare Flexible Spending Account Tax: The 30 - 35 million Americans who use a pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs face a new Obamacare cap of $2,500. This will squeeze $13 billion of tax money from Americans over the next ten years. (Before Obamacare, the accounts were unlimited under federal law, though employers were allowed to set a cap.) Now, a parent looking to sock away extra money to pay for braces will find themselves quickly hitting this new cap, meaning they would have to pony up some or all of the cost with after-tax dollars.

Needless to say, this tax will especially impact middle class families.

There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. Nationwide there are several million families with special needs children and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This Obamacare tax provision will limit the options available to these families. (Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,388-2,389)

Obamacare Individual Mandate Non-Compliance Tax: Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance – as defined by President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services -- must pay an income surtax to the IRS. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that six million American families will be liable for the tax, and as pointed out by the Associated Press: “Most would be in the middle class.”

In addition, 100 percent of Americans filing a tax return (140 million filers) will be forced to submit paperwork to the IRS showing they either had “qualifying” health insurance for every month of the tax year or they obtained an exemption to the mandate.

Read more: http://atr.org/obamacares-tax-hike-train-wreck-a7587#ixzz2S3id6z6J
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[Bob Sacamano]

Obamacare Individual Mandate Non-Compliance Tax: Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance – as defined by President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services -- must pay an income surtax to the IRS. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that six million American families will be liable for the tax, and as pointed out by the Associated Press: “Most would be in the middle class.”

In addition, 100 percent of Americans filing a tax return (140 million filers) will be forced to submit paperwork to the IRS showing they either had “qualifying” health insurance for every month of the tax year or they obtained an exemption to the mandate.

On NPR, yes, I listen to NPR now, they said that if you don't get health insurance, that you'll be taxed 1% of your salary.

 

[Hoofbite]

Obamacare Individual Mandate Non-Compliance Tax: Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance – as defined by President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services -- must pay an income surtax to the IRS. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that six million American families will be liable for the tax, and as pointed out by the Associated Press: “Most would be in the middle class.”

In addition, 100 percent of Americans filing a tax return (140 million filers) will be forced to submit paperwork to the IRS showing they either had “qualifying” health insurance for every month of the tax year or they obtained an exemption to the mandate.

On NPR, yes, I listen to NPR now, they said that if you don't get health insurance, that you'll be taxed 1% of your salary.

There are exclusions to the mandate. Anyone who would pay more than 8% of their income to health insurance are not subject to the penalties for being without health insurance.

 

[dbair1967]

Awful idea. Awful law. Huge mistake.

 

[VTA]

Awful idea. Awful law. Huge mistake.

Hey come on! If you pay 8% of your magically shrinking pay check, thanks to tax hikes for 'the rich' ***wink wink***, you can be excluded!

 

[ZeroClub]

Why would anyone want to change anything about health care? Sitting around watching sick people go bankrupt is fun.

 

[dbair1967]

Why would anyone want to change anything about health care? Sitting around watching sick people go bankrupt is fun.

I think this is grossly over estimated.

There's really little reason for people to actually "bankrupt" due to medical bills, because almost every provider (physician, hospital, surgery center, imaging center etc etc) will accept virtually any sort of payment plan that can be thought of. And unlike credit card and other money lenders where for years making the minimum payment made no dent in the total owed whatsoever, medical providers typically charge little interest or fees for payment plans.

I've seen the numbers they throw out there, if the numbers they have were actually true (which I doubt) then in a lot of those cases its been used a helpful excuse to ease a bankruptcy filing and approval, and I bet if we could examine each of these cases we'd see there's other credit arrangements the person is trying to escape from as well. I understand there are people who do fall on hard times and genuinely have to do this, but if someone makes 50-60k a yr and act like they cant pay back 5k in medical bills from a provider who's willing to work out payment plans, then the answer to this is obvious and has nothing to do with providing something as backwards as Obamacare.

 

[JBond]

Why would anyone want to change anything about health care? Sitting around watching sick people go bankrupt is fun.

Umm... How is dramatically increasing the cost of health-care going to reduce bankruptcies? Your post does not make any sense at all.

 

[MetalHead]

Why would anyone want to change anything about health care? Sitting around watching sick people go bankrupt is fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0

 

[Bob Sacamano]

Today, on NPR they were saying that 4 out of 6 people eligible for Obamacare have no idea that it's in effect.

Kind of depreciates all of the pre-election grandstanding, doesn't it?

I think the only people who feel good about it are the liberals' sense of themselves.

 

[VTA]

I think the only people who feel good about it are the liberals' sense of themselves.

Government induced altruism is a big esteem lifter. You don't have to lift a finger, but you can be assured you care about people.

 

[dbair1967]

"we need to pass this bill so we can see whats in it"

 

[Hoofbite]

Today, on NPR they were saying that 4 out of 6 people eligible for Obamacare have no idea that it's in effect.

Kind of depreciates all of the pre-election grandstanding, doesn't it?

I think the only people who feel good about it are the liberals' sense of themselves.

Parts have been in effect for a long time. Some of the provisions went into effect in 2010. The exchange portion where people actually get insurance doesn't start until later this year.