Jacoby wrote:
ArrantPariah wrote:
Jacoby wrote:
Yay! We can all pay more for health insurance! Those insurance executives weren't rich enough! Hopefully the SWAT team they send to my house for not being able to pay this 'tax' doesn't kill my dog before sending me to their rape cage.
Sorry, but you're way out of line, once again.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack ... ike-a-tax/Quote:
It does not apply to individuals who do not pay federal income taxes because their household income is less than the filing threshold in the Internal Revenue Code...
Roberts concludes the mandate functions more like a tax than the “penalty” for not buying insurance the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act labels it as, because in most cases “the amount due will be far less than the price of insurance,’’ and the IRS is “not allowed to use those means most suggestive of a punitive sanction, such as criminal prosecution,’’ to enforce it.
Moreover, he writes, “taxes that seek to influence conduct are nothing new”. For example, “federal and state taxes can compose more than half the retail price of cigarettes, not just to raise more money, but to encourage people to quit smoking.’’ He notes the court has also upheld “such obviously regulatory measures as taxes on selling marijuana and sawed-off shotguns.”
You've been listening to Repubnican propaganda without verifying, once again.
Romney's supporters all have health insurance, and absolutely nothing to worry about.
Those of you who are too poor to pay federal income taxes and also don't want health insurance similarly have absolutely nothing to worry about.
The Repubnican Party is simply trying to get you all riled up over nothing, and their ability to succeed at this will determine their chances to place Mitt Romney in the White House.
Do you know how much health insurance is? Do you know how
low the filing threshold is for federal income taxes? For a lot of people health insurance alone costs more than the filing threshold and now the price of health insurance will go up and up and up. Basically if you're a homeless person, you don't have to buy health insurance. Thanks Obama.
They said on CNN that this "tax" will likely be treated as an extension of your income taxes so if you don't pay the "tax", you'll be not be paying your income tax. So they'll put you in prison for not paying your income taxes not for failing to buy health insurance. Some choice.
No, there still will be no criminal penalty imposed; the tax penalty will be collected as Miscellaneous Excise Taxes, per IRS legal code below. The most the IRS can do per the law, if they choose to, is to double an evaded tax and sue for it. Criminal penalties, liens and levies, are not allowed under the law, per legals references below and link below, updated after the decision was made today:
http://factcheck.org/2012/06/how-much-is-the-obamacare-tax/Quote:
Who Collects?
The penalty will be collected by the Internal Revenue Service, which is one reason the chief justice cited for considering it to be a tax. In fact, the penalty is spelled out in Title 26 of the U.S. Code — the “Internal Revenue Code” — under Subtitle D — “Miscellaneous Excise Taxes.”
Partial Coverage
A tax is assessed for each month that a person is not covered. It is pro-rated, so that a person who is not covered for only a single month would pay 1/12th of the tax that would be due for the full year.
So, for example, the minimum tax per person for failing to get coverage would be $7.92 for each month of 2014, $28.75 for each month of 2015, and $57.92 for each month of 2016, when fully phased in.
Refusal to Pay
The law prohibits the IRS from seeking to put anybody in jail or seizing their property for simple refusal to pay the tax. The law says specifically that taxpayers “shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty” for failure to pay, and also that the IRS cannot file a tax lien (a legal claim against such things as homes, cars, wages and bank accounts) or a “levy” (seizure of property or bank accounts).
The law says that the IRS will collect the tax “in the same manner as an assessable penalty under subchapter B of chapter 68” of the tax code. That part of the tax code provides for imposing an additional penalty “equal to the total amount of the tax evaded, or not collected.” It also requires written notices to the taxpayer, and provides for court proceedings.
So it may turn out that the IRS will be suing those who fail to pay the tax for double the amount. But so far, the IRS has not spelled out exactly how it will enforce the new penalty with the limited power the law gives it.
Who’s Exempt?
The law makes a number of exemptions for low-income persons and hardship cases.
“Individuals who cannot afford coverage”: If an employer offers coverage that would cost the employee more than 8 percent of his or her household income (for self-only coverage) that individual is exempt from the tax.
“Taxpayers with income below filing threshold”: Also exempt are those who earn too little to be required to file tax returns. For 2011 — as previously mentioned — those thresholds were $9,500 for a single person under age 65, and $19,000 for a married person filing jointly with a spouse, for example. The thresholds go up each year in line with inflation, so those cut-offs will be higher in 2014, when the tax first takes effect.
“Hardships”: The Secretary of Health and Human Services is empowered to exempt others that she or he determines to “have suffered a hardship with respect to the capability to obtain coverage.”
Other exemptions: Also exempt are members of Indian tribes, persons with only brief gaps in coverage, and members of certain religious groups currently exempt from Social Security taxes (which as we’ve previously reported are chiefly Anabaptist — that is, Mennonite, Amish or Hutterite).
As one can see there are exemptions for those of low income and those evidenced with financial hardships.
Health insurance is expensive in the US at a current family average of close to 14,000 and single coverage average well above $4,000 a year, per premiums.
If a single person makes under approximately 15,300 based on projection levels of poverty at 133%, medicaid kicks in. And by 2016 when the full tax kicks in at $695 for an individual it's reasonable to project that the cut-off point for paying a premium, at 133% of poverty will be somewhere around 17,000. While possible, it's not likely any state is going to forgo 100% reimbursement from the federal government to cover their citizens for medicaid under the program. But if that is what the voters and politicians want in those particular states that is what they will get.
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/28/12462267-medicaid-ruling-upholds-carrot-overturns-stick-will-states-sign-on-anyway?lite
Link to subsidy calculator:
http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyCalculator.aspx
For those that refuse to purchase highly subsidized coverage, likely cheaper than the $695 tax, whom make over the medicaid limit, the highest possible tax rate increase they could receive based on total income is about 4 percent per the approximate $17,000 figure with a minimum tax rate of $695.
That's a choice between a bi-weekly deduction of about $27 dollars for the additional tax or what is projected at as about $18 for a bi-weekly insurance premium for a good insurance policy.
There will be lower cost insurance policies as well, than what is estimated for the subsidy calculator linked above that projects about a $470 per year premium for a single person, in what the government terms as silver plan insurance coverage.
28 Jun 2012, 9:41 pm
