As published in the Winter Park/Maitland Observer, Thursday Jan. 3, 2012 Edition Offers... Read More »
IRS Commissioner on Enforcement of Health Insurance Mandate
Moms Mabley had more teeth than the health insurance mandate. But Timothy Noah of Slate says IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman has a plan to enforce the health insurance mandate included in the recently passed healthcare bill: Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Doug Shulman seemed to indicate that if you didn’t purchase health insurance and then refused to pay…
Read Full Article Categorized in: healthcare reform, IRS Procedure, Tax CollectionsIRS Employees Threatened with Death if they Enforce Healthcare Provisions
“You can’t always get what you want.” - The Rolling Stones – Mick Jagger might have been thinking about democracy when he wrote that line. I don’t like the new healthcare bill. I think it’s too expensive and I think it’s bad for the economy. Still, I accept it as the law of the land because it was passed by a majority…
Read Full Article Categorized in: healthcare reformPaying for Obamacare: Tax Hikes & Medicare Cuts
The Tax Foundation issued the following News Release this weekend breaking down how the nearly $1 trillion healthcare bill will be financed: The $938 billion health care reform legislation finalized by Congress yesterday is financed primarily through net cuts to Medicare and an increased Medicare tax on high-income taxpayers, according to the Tax Foundation. The…
Read Full Article Categorized in: healthcare reform, NewsTanning Tax? How About a Tax on Hip Hop Music?
Paul Caron writes that a tanning salon lawyer has questioned the constitutionality of the tax on tanning services included in the recently passed healthcare bill: I [have] a question about the intersection of taxation and civil rights law. It strikes me that the health care bill which requires that indoor tanning salons charge customers a 10% tax beginning…
Read Full Article Categorized in: healthcare reform, Tax PolicyIncome Equality is My Goal, but Don’t You Dare Call me a Socialist
“I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”¹ - Barack Obama – If you had any doubts about the collectivist designs of this administration, reading the fine print of Obamacare will assuage them. The New York Times reports that the newly enacted healthcare reform law is, in fact, a wealth redistribution bill: For…
Read Full Article Categorized in: healthcare reformTax Changes in Healthcare Bill
The Tax Foundation has a list of the tax provisions included in the recently passed House healthcare reform bill: All starting dates are January 1 of that year, unless otherwise noted. This list is fairly exhaustive, meaning it includes virtually every tax provision. The major provisions, as defined as those projected to raise or lose more than $10…
Read Full Article Categorized in: healthcare reform, Tax PolicyTax Confiscation Ain’t Progress
President Obama’s healthcare plan raises the 1.45% Medicare payroll tax to 2.35% for families with more than $250,000 of earned income. Spread-the-wealther Timothy Noah of Slate wonders why Republicans aren’t making a bigger stink about this tax increase: Maybe the recession has made solicitude on the part of the rich less plausible to the electorate. Maybe…
Read Full Article Categorized in: healthcare reform, Legislative Watch, Tax PolicyObamacare to Increase Taxes by $412 Billion
You can call it a healthcare bill if you like, but it would be just as fair to call it a tax increase bill. Thomas Barthold, Chief of Staff of the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation¹, issued a report scoring the tax proposals of the President’s healthcare plan: I am providing you with a table of…
Read Full Article Categorized in: healthcare reform, Legislative Watch, Tax PolicyHuge Middle-Class Tax Hike in Senate Healthcare Bill
So much for the promise not to raise taxes on the middle-class. Douglas Holtz-Eaken and Alex Brill have written an Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal titled Another Obama Tax Hike: The Senate Health-Care Bill Would Raise Effective Marginal Tax Rates on Lower and Middle-Income Singles and Families up to 41%: [The Senate health care bill…
Read Full Article Categorized in: healthcare reform, Tax PolicyTax Hike on Investment Income?
Now that Democrats postponed the imposition of the luxury tax on the Cadillac insurance plans of labor union members, they are scammering to replace the lost revenues in order to keep their promise of deficit neutral healthcare reform. Mike Godfrey of TaxNews.com reports that Congressional Democrats are considering the imposition of an additional tax on passive investment income: Senior Congressional Democrats are exploring the…
Read Full Article Categorized in: healthcare reform, Legislative Watch, Tax PolicyCadillac Tax, Labor Unions, Maggot Cheese and The Metamorphosis
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from a troubled dream, he found himself changed in his bed into a giant cockroach.” - First line of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis - Whoever coined the adage, “don’t tax me, don’t tax thee, tax the guy behind the tree,” knew whereof he spoke. WebCPA reports that President Obama and Congressional Democrats…
Read Full Article Categorized in: healthcare reform, Legislative Watch, News, Tax PolicyCSPAN Calls Obama, Democrats Transparency Bluff
President Obama and his Democrat buddies spent eight years criticizing the secretiveness of the Bush administration. Now, they’ll have a chance to put up or shut up. (CueFinal Jeopardy Theme) The House and Senate will be meeting to attempt a reconciliation of the differences between the healthcare reform bills passed by their respective chambers. CBS News…
Read Full Article Categorized in: healthcare reform, Legislative WatchPartisan Vote to Restructure 16% of the U.S. Economy
As expected, this morning the Senate passed its healthcare reform bill on a 60-39 strict party line vote. Here’s the line score: Healthcare Reform Act of 2009 – 0% Republicans and 100% Democrats Compare this to the bipartisan ”yea” votes of other historic pieces of U.S. legislation: [Sources: I found these vote tallies mostly from official government sources. In…
Read Full Article Categorized in: Legislative WatchChristmas Song: Said Harry Reid to His Little Ben
Said Harry Reid to His Little Ben (Nelson) (Sing to the Tune of Do You Hear What I Hear?) Said Harry Reid to his little Ben, do you see what I see? Sign your name in my book, little Ben, do you see what I see? My bill, my bill, writhing in the dark With a tax hike as big…
Read Full Article Categorized in: SatireTax Increases in Senate Healthcare Bill
Ryan Ellis of Americans for Tax Reform has produced an excellent summary of the tax hikes included in the Senate healthcare plan which is expected to pass tomorrow: Individual Mandate Tax (Page 324/Sec. 1501/$15 bil/Jan 2014): Starting in 2014, anyone not buying “qualifying” health insurance must pay an income surtax according to the higher of…
Read Full Article Categorized in: healthcare reform, Tax Policy