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The IRS says it will not accept electronic tax returns that do not disclose whether the filer had health insurance coverage during the year. It also says it will suspend paper returns that do not have the disclosure. The IRS' move, which will bolster compliance with Affordable Care Act rules, comes as the Trump administration takes other steps to undercut the law. The IRS is warning tax professionals that it will block or suspend processing of 2017 income tax returns that do not comply with Obamacare rules requiring filers to disclose their health insurance status. The new move to tighten...

The Internal Revenue Service was involved in a $5 million push to pressure Americans to buy Obamacare coverage, according to documents obtained from the watchdog group Judicial Watch. Under former president Obama, the Department of Health and Human Services and the White House's Behavioral Sciences Team created a $5 million program to target and pressure those who refused Obamacare and either decided to pay a penalty instead or were exempt from being forced to purchase coverage. "Attached are drafts of the letters that IRS will send to selected taxpayers who paid a penalty for failure to have coverage or who...

Are you one of 20 million uninsured Americans who hasn’t signed up for Obamacare? Then you might be getting a note from the IRS this year “suggesting” you enroll. “Getting a letter from the IRS can be a threatening and nerve-racking experience; it seldom is seen as a suggestion and more of a threat,” Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner wrote in a Forbes column Wednesday. The IRS is reportedly “reaching out” to Americans who claimed an exemption or chose to pay the tax penalty for not purchasing mandatory health insurance. The ploy is intended to “attract” Obamacare enrollees. “The government...

Happy New Year, suckers That “affordable” health care the Democrats gave us in 2010 - on a reconciliation vote when none of them had read the entire 2,000-plus-page bill - sure keeps getting harder to afford. Of course, since ObamaCare is an unconstitutional mandate on individuals to purchase a product offered by private companies, it’s also quite difficult to afford not buying it - even though the product itself continues to devolve further into craptasm. Welcome to 2016, where the penalty you’ll face for not buying a product that’s now a bigger ripoff than ever will explode as follows:

The IRS cannot be sure that Americans who lacked health insurance last year have complied with Obamacare’s “individual mandate” penalty this tax season, according to an inspector general report Friday that pointed to a decision to delay proof-of-coverage forms from insurers and employers until 2016. Agency mangers told the Treasury’s Inspector General for Tax Administration that a “business decision was made to not develop processes and procedures” to ensure compliance after it decided in 2013 to delay the pair of forms. The documents are sent to both filers and the IRS, allowing the federal government to cross-check what filers say...

Health Reform: Providing still more evidence of how ObamaCare is "working," most enrollees learned this year that they had to pay back a huge chunk of their insurance subsidies. So much for "affordability."

For the first time, a majority of taxpayers will have to check a box on their tax return attesting they have health insurance either through their job or Medicare or Medicaid. But what happens if they miss it, which can easily happen on the complex form? The Internal Revenue Service told the Washington Examiner it will not penalize anyone who has insurance but neglected to check the box. However, a taxpayer may be asked by the agency if they have health insurance if their return is flagged during a routine check. "The IRS routinely follows-up on the accuracy and completeness...

The IRS is unable to answer most taxpayers’ calls this year because it’s had to put money into getting up and running for Obamacare, agency Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress on Wednesday.Mr. Koskinen said his agency has had to shift tens of millions of dollars from customer service over to build the computer systems and get ready to handle questions this year about Obamacare and the law’s tax penalty, which kicks in for the first time this year.

I just did my income taxes It came to a question of “Did I have health insurance coverage” and I answered NO (there was no option for “none of your f%^&ing business”) I wanted to see where this was going to take me. It then asked why I didn't have coverage and said that under ‘special circumstances’ that my fine/tax could be waived and it listed 5 options- one of which was “It was too expensive” and so I picked that... (inexplicably again there was no option for “none of your f%^&ing business”) Then it said “Congratulations! your fine/tax fee...

President Obama has talked a lot in recent months about how health care inflation has moderated in recent years, and he always manages to credit ObamaCare for the result. But there is rampant inflation in one part of the health care system, and ironically enough it involves ObamaCare premiums.

Somewhere along the way, the worker bees at Connect for Health Colorado dragooned us into an Obamacare exchange plan offered by Rocky Mountain Health without our knowledge or consent. (How else has the White House inflated Obamacare enrollment figures? Things that make you go “hmm.”) Last month, we received an IRS 1095-A form, which, much to our shock and chagrin, indicated that we had paid Obamacare premiums every month during 2014. It took hours of time on the phone and Internet to receive an explanation from Connect for Health Colorado on how exactly this had happened. Here was the government’s...

And none of them make the IRS look very good. This week, the Supreme Court considers King v. Burwell. At issue is whether the IRS exceeded its authority under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by issuing a final IRS rule that expanded the application of the Act’s subsidies and mandates beyond the limits imposed by the statute. King v. Burwell is not a constitutional challenge. It challenges an IRS rule as being inconsistent with the Act it purports to implement. The case is a straightforward question of statutory interpretation. Here are seven things everyone needs to know about...

Thousands of new Internal Revenue Service employees will not be shouldering the regulatory burden Obamacare rules have heaped onto the tax agency, despite IRS claims that it needed massive additional funding to hire such support staff. Only 483 of the 9,245 new hires President Obama is seeking for the IRS in his 2016 budget proposal would be assigned to work on Obamacare programs, according to a budget summary published by the federal tax agency. As the agency tasked with enforcing Obamacare’s individual mandate provision, the IRS must for the first time this year assess a fine against people who were...

I did my Income Taxes online last night. I got a surprise near the end. The tax program, I've used for years would not let me complete the process until I answered "Government Required" questions re: my family's health care. It began with: "Due to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act......" It seemed to indicate that if one does not have Health Coverage, it could hold up your Tax Return. That's your Government at work "for you"!

If You Received a Higher Obamacare Subsidy Than You Were Eligible For, You Don’t Have to Pay It Back This Year **SNIP** However, the IRS will waive the 2014 late payment penalty for those who received an excessive premium tax credit. The IRS has now granted these recipients of excessive federal benefits a one-year holiday. Even though they clearly owe the overpayment for 2014, they will effectively not have to, and no doubt won’t, pay the money back because they will not face any penalty if they do not pay it immediately. If the Obama administration delays the payment again,...

Seven months after federal officials fired CGI Federal for its botched work on Obamacare website Healthcare.gov, the IRS awarded the same company a $4.5 million IT contract for its new Obamacare tax program. CGI is a $10.5 billion Montreal-based company that has forever been etched into the public’s mind as the company behind the bungled Obamacare main website. After facing a year of embarrassing failures, federal officials finally pulled the plug on the company and terminated CGI’s contract in January 2014. Yet on Aug. 11, seven months later, IRS officials signed a new contract with CGI to provide “critical functions”...

Seven months after federal officials fired CGI Federal for its botched work on Obamacare website Healthcare.gov, the IRS awarded the same company a $4.5 million IT contract for its new Obamacare tax program. CGI is a $10.5 billion Montreal-based company that has forever been etched into the public’s mind as the company behind the bungled Obamacare main website. After facing a year of embarrassing failures, federal officials finally pulled the plug on the company and terminated CGI’s contract in January 2014. Yet on Aug. 11, seven months later, IRS officials signed a new contract with CGI to provide “critical functions”...

There are gong to be many millions of newly befuddled, fearful, and angry taxpayers this April, hit with the consequences of Obamacare’s social engineering when they try to file their taxes in April. Many will suffer unexpected financial penalties and costs, especially those accustomed to filing under the simplified tax forms applying to straight salaried people with standard deductions. H&R Block is warning that “[n]o one can understand” the New Obamacare tax code requirements for filing this year. In fact, millions of people accustomed to filing the postcard-sized 1040EZ form will now have to file extremely complicated and detailed forms,...

“Now that the Affordable Care Act has made health care a tax issue, no one can understand it,” H&R Block flatly tells taxpayers in a video that resides on its dedicated Obamacare web site. A former IRS Commissioner agrees, and cautions that the new tax requirements will be a “shock to the system,” especially afflicting low-income earners who have never itemized on their tax return.The tax preparation giant — with 24 million tax clients worldwide — reports that the Obamacare tax rules now constitute “the biggest tax code change in the last 20 years.”The company is so concerned, it has...

Be prepared for the tax man to get even more personal this year — with questions about your health insurance. For the first time, you'll have to state whether you had health insurance, through an employer, one of the exchanges or purchased privately. And if you didn't, you could face a penalty. Also, if you got advance payments of the premium tax credit under the Affordable Care Act, even for only part of the year, there's a new form to file... There's more. If you had life changes — a new job with a higher salary, for example — from...