The Obamacare Penalty: Yes, It Can Be Avoided.
We asked Mark Luscombe, principal analyst at CCH Tax & Accounting North America, about that. Turns out Limbaugh is essentially right. If you don't get a refund next year, the “IRS could carry over the sum due and apply it against any refunds in future years. On a joint return, the penalty of one joint filer could be applied against the refund due to the other joint filer,” Luscombe says.
“If you don’t pay it, all they can do is wait until they owe you some money and take that. Or probably just send you a letter every now and then reminding you that you owe money to the IRS,” says Timothy Jost, a professor at the Washington and Lee University School of Law and coauthor of the casebook “Health Law.”
And by the way, once the IRS assesses the penalty, they’ve got 10 years to collect, says Bryan Camp, law professor at Texas Tech University.
The law also prohibits the IRS from using liens or levies to collect any “payment you owe related to the law, if you, your spouse or a dependent included on your tax return does not have minimum essential coverage,” according to the IRS. That means the IRS cannot go into someone’s “checking accounts anyway and just take the money,” as one of Limbaugh’s callers suggested the Obama administration might just do.
Thanks and that is why I posted the bill here.
In fact in 2010 I remember the debate and how this got unto the law, it was because they House Dems were forced to accept the Senate version which had the wimpy mandate.
The Pelosi House version of O care had very punitive penalties.
Remember that they wanted a public plan or single payer,
Maybe they think by posting all this diabolical stuff that Obamacare will magically be repealed, or they just get off on making up all this scary sounding stuff.
But at this point with Obamacare going forward we shouldn’t be encouraging people to sign up if its not in their best interest to. If they are getting it free or mostly paid then it might be in their best interest to sign up (like medicaid for fre) .
But if they are the target young healthy cash cows that Dems need to make it work their best move might be to just not comply.
I am not interested in deceiving people.