It’s a continuation of established & accepted tax law:
You pay $X unless you can demonstrate a qualifying deduction.
Go thru your 1040 form and notice there’s a bunch of such cases: sometimes X is a fixed amount, sometimes it varies, usually it’s veiled by some indirection but upshot is you pay that amount unless you can demonstrate a qualifying deduction.
Now one of the qualifying deductions is gov’t-approved health insurance, and X = $3000.
For 47% of “taxpayers”, the small fraction thereof who don’t have that qualifying deduction will have other deductions which will reduce that amount to $0.
It’s like current taxation:
You pay $1000 unless you have a dependent child with a Social Security Number.
You pay $500 unless you purchased a home-energy-reduction product (insulation, solar panels, etc.).
You pay $1000 (or whatever) unless you purchased an electric car.
There’s a whole bunch of products for which you, in effect, pay a tax if you don’t buy (flip side of getting a deduction if you do).
Just a new take on standard law.
I don’t like where I’m taking this.
Yeah. The cute part is that the media have two years to spin it before the hammer comes down.
I think I can help you with that. Let's back up to your initial premise:
It’s a continuation of established & accepted tax law:
You pay $X unless you can demonstrate a qualifying deduction.
That isn't what the law said, nor is it what the government argued in defending it. As the dissent acknowledged, Congress undeniably has the power to tax, but they chose not to exercise that right in drafting this law. Roberts did not even rule on the law - he simply rewrote it.
And to think we all expected a conservative justice, if nothing else, would refrain from legislating from the bench.
VDH is right: there are no silver linings.
EXCEPT of course this was NOT written as tax law.Penalties are NOT taxes