It's as if we've run out of good ideas...

.

... but make laws we must anyway



Time was in this country when Congress passed legislation and which the President signed into law that gave certain people the right to vote which they had been previously denied or created our national park system to be enjoyed by all future generations of Americans or even declarations that sent our armed forces to war to rid the planet of the scourge of fascism and imperialism. Now days, we pass laws to saddle all future generations of Americans with mountains of debt and to ensure the IRS is all up in our britches more than at any time in our country's history.

"It is unprecedented in recent history, the amount of responsibility the IRS is being given in an area that most people don't think of as an IRS function,"

So saith J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, in his testimony before the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday regarding the IRS's responsibility for ObamaCare compliance.

George added that Americans , will have more questions about their taxes because of health care penalties or credits, flooding already busy call-in and walk-in tax help centers. "This is going to lead to problems, sir."

Truly... the IRS as the enforcement arm of the new health care law. What could possibly go wrong?

And these resource issues are bound to spill over into tax fraud enforcement, where the IRS will have to do a cost-benefit analysis when determining which tax fraudsters to chase.

"They have to determine what enforcement mechanisms they'll employ . how they go about determining who to audit and who not to," George said.

It would appear that the 16,000 additional IRS agents that were/are to be hired wasn't necessarily the stuff of righty blog fever swamps.

The non-partisan GAO (Government Accounting Office) says there are 47 new taxes and regulations to administer in overseeing of ObamaCare. Go the link for the full list but here are just a few of our faves:

3.Imposes a penalty on health plans identified in an annual Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) penalty fee report, which is to be collected by the Financial Management Service after notice by the Department of the Treasury (Treasury)

.

To our knowledge, no one yet knows what the acceptable/not-acceptable criteria is.

4.Requires state exchanges to send to Treasury a list of the individuals exempt from having minimum essential coverage, those eligible for the premium assistance tax credit, and those who notified the exchange of change in employer or who ceased coverage of a qualified health plan.

These would be the state exchanges that have not yet been set up. Deadline is October of this year. Any takers?

The people being spoken about here are exempt from ObamaCare because they do not make enough money. However, according to the CBO, there will be approx. 6 million Americans who make too much too qualify for the exemption yet not enough to sign up for health insurance. This group of people will be subjected to the ObamaCare penalty tax.

11. Authorizes IRS to disclose certain taxpayer information to HHS for purposes of determining eligibility for premium tax credit, cost-sharing subsidy, or state programs including Medicaid, including (1) taxpayer identity; (2) the filing status of such taxpayer; (3) the modified adjusted gross income of taxpayer, spouse, or dependents; and (4) tax year of information.

Again, the IRS: all up in your business where they have never been before and disseminating said business to another federal bureaucracy.

22. Imposes a 40 percent excise tax on high cost employer-sponsored health insurance coverage on the aggregate value of certain benefits that exceeds the threshold amount.

Companies get wacked for not providing enough healthcare coverage and wacked for providing too much.

44. Imposes a tax of 2.3 percent on the sale price of any taxable medical device on the manufacturer, producer, or importer.

Dem pols in the Boston area who voted for ObamaCare are trying to get this tax thrown out as they are only now figuring out that tax will actually have adverse effects on the medical industry of the Hub City.


Again, go to the link for the entirety of the list.




Exit question: We may try to expand on this later, but can a Republic reach a point where they've got pretty much all their basis covered but since they maintain a full time legislative body that is sent to the nation's capitol to do something, they wind up being far more counter-productive than not?

Medicare Part D, TARP, Porkulus, Dodd-Frank Fin-Reg, Cash for Clunkers and, of course, ObamaCare...


It's worth considering.