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IRS drops a bomb on small employers » Annual tax would be $36,500 per worker for noncompliance with Obamacare Employers with fewer than 50 employees were promised a break by not having to provide group health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. But now the IRS has served notice that under the rule that has been in effect since July 1 such employers are subject to $100 per worker per day excise tax if they help their employees with their health-care costs. That could amount to a staggering $36,500 per worker annual tax. “We were told over and over during...

One out of four U.S. employers may soon face a steep new Obamacare tax on the insurance coverage they offer workers, unless they take steps to reduce overall spending on the plans. A new analysis released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 26 percent of employers offer health benefits that could be subject to the Affordable Care Act's "Cadillac" tax on high-cost plans when it starts in 2018. The tax kicks in when the total spending on a health plan — including the employer and employee premium contributions — exceeds $10,022 for an individual or $27,500 for a...

Despite the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding ObamaCare subsidies, opponents of the law remain poised to strike a key blow against another component of the health care overhaul in a matter of months. Republicans, with help from Democrats, have gained momentum in their long-running effort to repeal the law's controversial 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices. The House voted 280-140 to nix the tax, which went into effect in 2013, in June; the debate heads next to the Senate. While Republicans have tried dozens of times to unravel all or parts of the law through repeal legislation, this bill...

What Marketplace?:: By: Larry Walker II ::“Putting thoughts into words is vastly different from putting truth into words. For words are not truth. As ardently as writers sort and select and polish their words, at the end of the day they are still words. They are not, in themselves, truth...” ~ Lionel FisherThe act of naming the federal government’s unlawfully subsidized website an “Exchange” or “Health Insurance Marketplace” doesn’t make it one. In a true marketplace, when a product or service is inadequate new competitors are allowed to step in and offer something better. But free competition is stifled when...

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...

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.

Paying Your Fair Share:: By: Larry Walker II ::In Tax Simplification, Part II, I expounded on a 2010 Annual Report to Congress, in which National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson focused on the need for tax reform as the No. 1 priority in tax administration. In particular, she focused on the problem of delivering social benefits through the tax system, which complicates the mission of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), resulting in a dual mission of welfare administration as well as revenue collection. But instead of taking heed, the federal government doubled down, adding a new health care excise tax...

Thirty-six states that rely on private managed care programs to provide medical services to all or some of their Medicaid recipients are facing an added ObamaCare tax. According to a report by Milliman consulting actuaries, states that contract with Medicaid managed care plans face up to $15 billion in added costs over 10 years for their share of the law’s tax on private health insurance. States will pay even if they strongly oppose ObamaCare and are refusing to establish health insurance exchanges or expand Medicaid. The health law imposes an annual tax on private health insurance plans – a tax...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Have you seen or heard the audio snippet of the actual author of Obamacare? His name is Jonathan Gruber. He is a professor at MIT, a professor of economics. He wrote both Romneycare and he wrote Obamacare. "Oh, yeah, he's a brilliant, smart guy! Oh, totally smart guy." Almost a year ago, in October of 2013, he was in Philadelphia speaking at the 24th Annual Health Economics Conference, and he spoke about Obamacare and how and what they had to do to make it a reality. I want you to listen to how this prominent Democrat, prominent...

In a video that surfaced on Friday, economist and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said “lack of transparency” and “stupidity of the American voter” were “critical” to passing the president’s unpopular health care law. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber said. “Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever. But basically, that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.” Gruber added that he wished “we could make it all transparent,” but said the bill would not have passed if not for the administration’s art of deception on key features of the law. “This...

In a newly surfaced video, one of Obamacare’s architects admits a “lack of transparency” helped the Obama administration and congressional Democrats pass the Affordable Care Act. The conservative group American Commitment posted Jonathan Gruber’s remarks, reportedly from an Oct. 17, 2013, event, on YouTube. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” says the MIT economist who helped write Obamacare. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”

Meet Jonathan Gruber, a professor at MIT and an architect of Obamacare. During panel event last year about how the legislation passed, turning over a sixth of the U.S. economy to the government, Gruber admitted that the Obama administration went through "tortuous" measures to keep the facts about the legislation from the American people, including covering up the redistribution of wealth from the healthy to the sick in the legislation that Obamacare is in fact a tax. The video of his comments just recently surfaced ahead of the second open enrollment period for Obamacare at Healthcare.gov. "You can't do it...

On Friday, the justices of the Supreme Court held a conference to review petitions for certiorari and other procedural matters. Among the most-watched petitions before the justices was that in King v. Burwell, a challenge to the legality of an IRS rule authorizing tax credits for the purchase of health insurance in federally established exchanges. This morning, the Court released the order list from the conference, and King was absent. Rampant speculation about what this could mean ensued. (See Chris Walker’s walk through the possibilities here.) Shortly thereafter, a notation on the King docket indicated that King has been relisted...

The bill is coming due for ObamaCare and it’s a whopper. According to Medicare Care’s own actuaries U.S. health care spending is about to rocket. Federal meddling in what was once the finest and cost-effective health care system on the planet is nothing new. Back in the 1960s, many Americans paid for doctor and hospital services out of pocket or through modestly priced private insurance. Health care spending was about 6 percent of GDP. Enter President Johnson and Medicare. He bought millions of votes by giving seniors free health care that they never paid for through payroll taxes during their...

It appears Sen. Orin Hatch's comment that "everything from this ill-conceived tax's structure to its implementation has been a disaster," are coming true. As AP reports, an "Obamacare" tax on medical devices is falling short of its revenue target because thousands of companies aren't paying it, according to a government audit released Tuesday. An audit found the IRS received only 5,107 returns (against expectations of over 9,000) with a 24% shortfall in revenues. The tax is projected to generate $29 billion over the coming decade, so a 24 percent shortfall - if it were sustained - would be significant. As...

An ObamaCare tax on medical devices is falling short of its revenue target because thousands of companies aren't paying it, according to a government audit released Tuesday. The audit by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration says the IRS needs to do a better job policing the tax. The tax agency, however, doesn't have adequate tools to identify which companies owe it, the audit said.

A key appeals court on Tuesday ruled that despite including a tax, Obamacare doesn’t violate the Constitution’s requirement that all tax bills originate in the House of Representatives, giving the Obama administration another health care win. The three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said that the Obamacare tax was “incidental” to the primary purpose of the Affordable Care Act, so it isn’t a revenue-raising measure as envisioned by the Constitution. “Some exercises of the taxing power are not subject to the Origination Clause,” the unanimous panel concluded. The issue had been in...

For months, there have been assertions that the mechanisms embedded in Obamacare, designed to offset losses that insurance companies will take this year on their exchange business, amount to a bailout of the insurance industry. At the same time, it wasn’t clear where the money to pay for these “risk adjustments” would come from in the first place. Now we know where the “bailout” money is going to come from. It will be paid for by a new tax levied on the insurance companies. Since Obamacare health plans were prevented from pricing products to reflect true risk, they were always...

Colorado will begin charging an Obamacare tax next month on all health insurance policies — even those obtained through private employers — to help prop up the state’s struggling health care exchange. ... Republicans have called the Obamacare tax unconstitutional, given that the state’s constitution requires voters to approve any tax increases, but exchange managers insist it’s a fee, not a tax.