Better Buy some Health Insurance
It just gets better. We’ve all known for a while that the IRS is to be given authority over compliance with the Individual Mandate Tax (IMT), but it may not have been obvious to you that it means they will be responsible for ascertaining individual compliance. Representatives Dave Camp (R-MI), Ranking Member, and Charles Boustany (R-LA) of the Subcommittee on Oversight of the Committee on Ways and Means, have just issued a nine page report that sheds light on some of the scary details.
It occurs to me that if we were to ever encounter some miraculous policy-making window that would allow us to debate alternatives to the current income tax system, these additional IRS powers (and huge expansion of personnel) would make the decision even more difficult than now; but maybe someone in D.C. has already had the same thought.
Here’s my transcript of their Executive Summary:
HIGHLIGHTS OF NEW IRS AUTHORITY
- IRS agents verify if you have “acceptable” health care coverage
- IRS has the authority to fine you up to $2,250, or 2% of your income (whichever is greater) for failure to prove that you have purchased “minimum essential coverage”
- IRS can confiscate your tax refund
- IRS audits are likely to increase
- IRS will need up to $10 billion to administer the new health care program this decade
- IRS may need to hire as many as 16,500 additional auditors, agents and other employees to investigate and collect billions in new taxes from Americans
- Nearly half of these new individual mandate taxes (IMT) will be paid by Americans earning less than 300% of poverty ($66,150 for a family of four)
SPECIAL EXEMPTION
Democrats prohibit the IRS from imposing these taxes and penalties on illegal immigrants
The full report can be viewed here.
