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January 1, 2013 brought a host of new taxes, fees, and charges to the American people. Some of them were anticipated. Others, like the (Medical Device Excise Tax) (MDET), were not — at least not in this way. How so? Well, the MDET has started showing up on the receipts for purchases made at sporting goods giant Cabela’s. This receipt from one such store in Texas is making the rounds on the web. It shows an additional tax has been added to the purchase, after the local sales tax of nearly 10% was charged. [snip] What is a Medical Excise...

The Obama administration earlier this year defended the medical device tax, saying companies actually stand to benefit from the law. lol

Eighteen Democratic U.S. Senators and senators-elect sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid last week calling for a “delay in the implementation” of the medical device tax in Obamacare, the Wall Street Journal reports. The provision was an integral part of the version of the Obamacare law, which was passed in the Senate under Reid’s stewardship in 2009. It is set to take effect on January 1, 2013. An effort to repeal the provision failed in Congress in June. At the time, Reid characterized the proposed repeal as a Republican attack on Obamacare. “The medical technology industry directly...

Without congressional action, at the end of 2012 the so-called “Bush-Era tax cuts” will expire, impacting nearly all taxpayers. Bush-Era tax cuts is the term generally used for the 2001 and 2003 Tax Reconciliation Acts. These changes were to last only 10 years, but a 2010 Tax Act extended the cuts until the end of 2012.... Let’s take a look at the following couple. They are doing well, having combined wages of $125,000. They have 2 young children, $2,000 of capital gains, and $500 of dividend income. Under current rules, they would have a federal income tax of $15,810. However,...

100 Days Until Taxmageddon Sunday will mark the start of the 100-day countdown to “Taxmageddon” – the date the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect. They will hit families and small businesses in three great waves on January 1, 2013: First Wave: Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for small business owners, families, and investors (later re-upped by President Obama and Democrat Congress in 2010). The following tax hikes will occur on January 1, 2013: Personal income tax rates will rise on January...

On September 11, 2012, IRS Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement Steven Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee about the IRS' implementation of Obamacare. One part of his testimony was actually fairly amusing: The IRS conducted an extensive outreach and implementation program for the Small Business Health Care Tax Credit. Shortly after the ACA [Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare] was passed, the IRS determined the necessary steps to both implement the credit and track these efforts. The IRS conducted significant outreach, communication, and educational activities to inform small businesses and tax professionals about the credit. We created...

Republican Heather Wilson, a candidate for U.S. Senate in New Mexico, has a new ad criticizing her opponent, Democratic congressman Martin Heinrich, for voting twice for a medical device tax that Heinrich had noted himself would be bad for job creation. ... Wilson, a former member of the House, is running to replace retiring Democrat Jeff Bingaman in the Senate.

The written testimony that Jonathan Adler and I submitted for the House Oversight Committee hearing on the Internal Revenue Service’s unlawful attempt to increase taxes and spending under Obamacare is now online. An excerpt: Contrary to the clear language of the statute and congressional intent, this [IRS] rule issues tax credits in health insurance “exchanges” established by the federal government. It thus triggers a $2,000-per-employee tax on employers and appropriates billions of dollars to private health insurance companies in states with a federal Exchange, also contrary to the clear language of the statute and congressional intent. Since those illegal expenditures will exceed...

How high is the marginal tax rate on each additional dollar the average American earns? In other words, if you got a raise of one dollar, how much of that dollar would be taxed away? These rates are already high, and they’re getting higher next year. A middle-class taxpayer’s income is subject to a 25 percent federal income tax. Then there is the federal Social Security and Medicare payroll tax of 13.3 percent in 2012—5.65 percent of that is removed from the employee’s paycheck, and the remaining 7.65 percent is paid by the employer. (In reality, the employee pays the...

My wife of 32 years has been a general surgeon in private practice since 1985. She came up thought the Old Boys Network, when female surgeons were few. We went through graduate school and residency on the south side of Chicago for 5 years, giving up our young married life to a commitment to people. We lived in a one bedroom 800 square foot apartment behind Michael Reese Hospital, on 31st and King Drive, as minority white folks, sacrificing all for 80-120 hour workweeks (before PC got in the way and now the puss* surgical residents have limited hours). In...

Every so often, you read something so ridiculously stupid and absurd that you assume that you’re being pranked. So you look to the date of the article to see if it says April 1. Or you look at the Internet address to see if it’s a parody of a real website. So when I read a column suggesting that the United States should become more like Italy, I thought this must be some sort of practical joke. After all, Italy is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, kept afloat by bailouts and subsidies. Its economy is in the toilet, with...

Obama: Healthcare reform deficit neutralPublished: June 15, 2009 at 5:06 PM CHICAGO, June 15 (UPI) -- The $1 trillion, 10-year price tag for reforming the U.S. healthcare system is steep, but inaction will cost more, President Obama told physicians Monday. Obama touted his vision of healthcare reform before the American Medical Association's annual meeting in Chicago, saying providing affordable healthcare for all Americans "will come at a cost" but only in the short-run. "(Failing) to reform our healthcare system in a way that genuinely reduces cost growth will cost us trillions of dollars more in lost economic growth and lower...

ABC's JAKE TAPPER: "One of the concerns about health care and how you pay for it -- one third of the funding comes from cuts to Medicare." BARACK OBAMA: "Right."

When he was asking for our vote in 2008, then candidate Barack Obama famously promised the American people, "I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." But as the Supreme Court has now authoritatively ruled, the Obamacare individual mandate, requiring workers to purchase the health insurance the government specifies each family must buy, is a tax. And that tax applies to the middle class and working...

People like me who believe the government should play a less active role in subsidizing healthcare costs are often asked the question "Do you believe healthcare is a basic human right?"While this is an important philosophical question to ponder, it often lends itself to unexamined answers and political demagoguery. The imprecise answer "yes" to this question by most governments around the world (including the United States) has served mainly to accelerate healthcare-cost growth and benefit the medical-industrial complex at the expense of the public. To appreciate this point, one must consider the reality of what having a right to...

Is the individual mandate in ObamaCare a tax? No, said Nancy Pelosi. No, said DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, even if the IRS is the only agency that can enforce it. No, said Jay Carney, or at least, "it is not a broad-based tax."Of course, Mitt Romney called it a tax --- eventually. Yesterday, his opponent in the election weighed in on the issue, and … have we reached a consensus?CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO OF OBAMA ADMITTING HE LIED TO US “By the way, if you’ve got health insurance, you’re not getting hit by a tax,” President Obama...

The Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee will later today release the following chart, detailing the rising projected cost of President Obama's signature legislation, Obamacare: The latest estimate, as the chart details, is that Obamacare will cost $2.6 trillion dollars in its first real decade. The bill does not fully go into effect until 2014, therefore the estimate begins with that year. "President Obama promised a joint session of Congress in 2009 to spend $900 billion over ten years on his health care law: 'Now, add it all up, and the plan that I’m proposing will

I am retired USN and currently pay a small Premium to HUMANA for TRICARE PRIME this covers my family with medical insurance. Since I began working for my employer he has allowed me to keep the portion that he would have to pay for my healthcare insurance as incentive pay it works out to be about $2.50 per hour. How is this going to be impacted by Obamacare? Any references would be appreciated.

President Barack Obama today proposed allowing the income tax rates enacted in the Bush tax cuts of the last decade to expire at the end of this year for people earning more than $250,000 and at the end of next year for everyone else. Under current law, the lower tax rates will expire at the end of 2012. Under Obama's proposal, they will expire at the end of 2012 for those making more than $250,000 and at the end of 2013 for Americans making less than $250,000. “At the same time, most people agree, we should not raise taxes on...

Part One: The Opportunity The Political Cudgel--and the Embedded Nail The Supreme Court’s Obamacare-affirming decision--which can be summed up as “Read John Roberts’ lips, it’s a tax”--has put a political cudgel in the hands of Republicans. The cudgel, of course, is taxes. But a huge nail is also embedded in the cudgel: the fundamental deceit of Obamacare. Yet in the week since the Court’s decision, Republicans have yet to demonstrate that they truly grasp the significance of this weapon--or that they can effectively wield it. Why? Some Republicans are worried that the fight over Obamacare distracts from the issue of...