Posted on 01/11/2015 8:00:17 AM PST by Kaslin
Deluged with catastrophes, court challenges and criticism, Obamacare (ACA) has had a controversial life to date. Yet it is ready to enter a completely new phase where the implementation gets shifted to the Internal Revenue Service Americas favorite three words. If you liked the health care plan up to now, you aint seen nothing yet.
2010 was actually the first year that the IRS was involved in Obamacare enforcement. The Small Business Health Care Tax Credit went into effect with this filing year. You may remember I wrote that there was mass resistance to this credit by the tax-preparer community. We could not figure out how to get the credit for our clients while at the same time keeping the cost of preparing the paperwork lower than the actual credit being received by our clients. The calculations and the complexity of the credit were obviously created by lawyers and policy wonks that have no discernible experience with taxes on this planet, let alone the United States. Accordingly to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the result was that only 170,300 businesses took advantage of this credit during 2010 when it was estimated that between 1.4 and 4.0 million small business employers would be eligible. In fact, the credits were supposed to encourage small businesses that did not offer insurance to their employees to begin doing so. The GAO reported that the credits went to businesses that were already offering insurance to their employees.
That small amount of businesses claiming the credit was not because of preparer ignorance as supporters of Obamacare have claimed. To the contrary, the question becomes how many preparers took advantage of their clients by actually charging them for preparation of the paperwork to garner this credit?
Tax-year 2014 begins the filing of Obamacare-related reporting for individuals, and each person must report that they are in compliance with the new law through their own personal tax return. You think taxes were a nightmare before this? Each taxpayer must show that they have insurance or that they are exempt from insurance. To facilitate this the IRS has developed some spanking new forms for the benefit of us all. The primary form you must have in hand is a 1095 form. To make matters more complicated, the IRS could not live with one universal 1095 form; they had to develop three: A, B and C. A is for those receiving their insurance through the Obamacare websites, B is issued by insurance companies to people who have their own plans and C is for employees of large companies. Then there is another form (8965) if you have an exemption from having to have coverage.
I know you were thinking nothing could go wrong here. This is requiring millions and millions of additional forms to be filed by various insurance providers and sent to individuals who dont have an understanding of the requirements. People will be receiving forms of which they have no understanding, and thus deluging their tax preparers with queries. I cannot wait until the IRS sends out millions of computer-generated letters threatening people and businesses about the fact they did not properly comply with the law. No wonder they hired 16,000 IRS agents to deal with this mess.
If you dont have coverage as mandated by the law you are subject to (are you ready?) The Shared Responsibility Penalty. Wow, some wonk worked ages to come up with that Orwellian name. Didnt the Supreme Court determine that was a tax? What was Judge Roberts thinking?
We then get into the Premium Assistance Credit (PAC). That is what those people who go on the Obamacare website are told will reduce their premiums if they are income qualified. This has created a phenomenon rarely ever seen in our country. This has Americans working hard to reduce their income to reduce their health insurance premiums. Or others trying to falsely increase income to avoid being on Medicaid.
There are many traps here. The person teaching my class told of the poor schmoo who happily gets a Christmas bonus from his employer of $500. The problem is he has a family of four and his income before the bonus is $95,000. His new income of $95,500 exceeds the limit for income for a family of four to be eligible for the PAC by a whopping $100. He would then be exposed to refunding up to $12,000 of PAC through their tax return. Just wait until the happy Christmas bonus recipient finds that out around March.
While in class to learn about the implementation of all these new rules, we spent an entire morning going through the law and how it affects us (and thus you our clients). About two-thirds of the way through the morning I questioned the whole process. I stated that if someone walked into to my office who was receiving the PAC that I would not accept them as a client. The cost of preparing the paperwork to get them properly qualified to receive the benefit would exceed anything I could reasonably charge them. The instructor, a fine fellow from Iowa, stated he unfortunately had to agree with me. So now tax preparers will have to decide whether to accept clients based on our health care system -- just like doctors.
All of this mess was so that, to this time (prior to the 2014 enrollment period), 8.7 million people could be added to the Medicaid rolls and about three million Americans could lose their private insurance. 8.7 million people that are added to a system which already included 59 million people who could not find a doctor to serve them because of the meager reimbursement rates that exist.
Let me remind you of two things. Having health insurance does not equate to having health care despite the pleading of the Obamacare supporters. Also, Obamacare did zero, zilch, nada, bupkis, zippo to increase the supply of health care providers. Makes you wonder why doctors were involved in drafting this law.
I am sure you are really looking forward to preparing your income tax returns this coming year. But please dont harm anyone after reading this column. There are simply not enough people to take care of them now.
Obamicare is an Obamanation.
Good, I hope it causes a lot of screaming. Maybe some pols will start moving their asses to get rid of this catastrophe.
I heard that those who received Obamacare subsidies will be taxed on them. A lot of people are gonna be shocked at tax time.
The IRS is an absolute monopoly. No competition, no oversight, no feedback loop whatsoever. They ignore court decisions at will, lie to Congress at will. They can confiscate the assets of anyone, anywhere, at any time.
This is what the American people voted for, twice.
For this year, you only need a 1095 if you bought your insurance on the ACA market (1095A). They will take your word you were insured if you have it from another source.
Next year, all taxpayers will need a 1095 - either the A, B or C form, depending on where you got your insurance.
My guess is that a lot of folks will be pissed when they do their taxes. And they will know who to blame.
Those 15,000 accountants and attorneys the IRS hired for this project were likely a nice economic stimulus for the people who got the jobs. For the rest of us, not so much.
There is a reconciliation process for those who got a prepaid credit on their insurance. Depending on the accuracy of their income projection, it might result in their getting more back, or less. They may be surprised, however, to need to show monthly coverage for everyone in their tax household - a term that didn’t use to exist.
“The IRS is an absolute monopoly. No competition, no oversight, no feedback loop whatsoever.”
Under the Messiah, this IRS is the Mafia!
There are some folks I need to send this article to.
I cannot believe this passed and is the law of the land.
Now in the hands of the IRS. The hands of the IRS need to be chopped off. That would be the starter, then immediately move to the beheading.
The founding fathers would find the IRS to be one of the most evil and wicked institutions thrust upon a people. And in their country nonetheless. They would be wondering why they fought and died like they did to remove the shackles of king George and England; and the tea tax and the stamp tax, etc. And yet, their posterity allows an abomination such as FedZilla and specifically the IRS to terrorize its own people and shackle and enslave them. Unbelievable!!! History will not treat us well. Bunch of cowards.
Oh, but wait, let’s vote in Romney, or bush. Yea, that will fix our problems. And here is your rainbow colored skittles pooped out the butt of a unicorn. Or any other R, yea just one R. Give me an R, give me an R, what’s that spell? Rrrrrrepublican. Give me an R for $1000. Answer is. A group of people that thinks that by voting in an R will fix all their problems and the world will become shiny and new. Question: what is a republican?
The people who voted for Obama don’t have the sensory perception to process cause and effect.
We have been grubered.
I need to call my IRS Physician.
Well, to his credit George W. Bush pushed and did increase the HSA program.
I couldn't get it in my state but a lot of people benefited. I sure wish I had had the Bush HSA the last 7 years or so.
Where Obamacare is concerned for example, low-information voters, which includes evidently most state lawmakers, governors and state justices, need to know that activist justices wrongly ignored the following when they gave Obamacare a green light. The Supreme Court had previously clarified that the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the constitution, the specific power to regulate intrastate commerce which includes taxing and spending for intrastate healthcare purposes.
State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress. [emphases added] Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
In fact, regardless that federal Democrats and RINOs will argue that if the Constitution doesnt say that they cannot do something then they can do it, note that the Supreme Court has condemned that foolish idea. More specifically, the Supreme Court has clarified in broad terms that powers not expressly delegated to the feds via the Constitution, the power to regulate intrastate healthcare in this case, are prohibited to the feds.
From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added]. United States v. Butler, 1936.
Note that if the states want a national healthcare program that there is nothing stopping them from amending the Constitution to grant the feds the specific power to establish such a program. But corrupt Democrats chose to wrongly ignore the will of the Constitutions Article V state majority and established Obamacare outside the framework of the Constitution.
Finally, please bear in mind that the 10th Amendment is probably one of the best kept secrets in corrupt DC.
It got excused in the last round as a tax.
It does not look like a constitutional tax, though the “too big to fail” mindset surely figured.
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