Here’s an unusually simple and horribly stark analysis of US health system http://t.co/yhQirpMS3A @GuardianUS
— Jane Thynne (@janethynne) March 5, 2014
Both Homelanders and Americansabroad and especially those subject to the 3.8% Obamacare surtax will find the article referenced in this tweet to be of interest. It includes:
Forget 'Keep Your Plan' And The Website, #Obamacare Taxes Are Worse http://t.co/eiXSfTMsPG via @forbes
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) January 7, 2014
Forget for a moment that the Affordable Heath Act resulted in the confiscation of the health plans of some individuals. That is only of the lies of Obamacare.
You will recall that the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare on the basis that it was a tax! In fact Obamacare contains hidden taxes (penalties for failure to comply) and many visible taxes.
Robert Wood describes what a massive tax The Affordable Health Act AKA Obamacare really is:
As with many tax laws–and on many fundamental levels, the Affordable Care Act is a tax law–determining exactly where the tax burden falls isn’t always clear. One of the new taxes funds the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). (I wish this institute included “affordable” for it makes a better acronym.) This 2% levy on health plans is expected to collect a cool $8 billion this year alone.
By 2018, annual receipts from the little 2% climb to $14.3 billion. Over a decade, it reaps over $100 billion. Here comes the zinger. Self-insured employers (public companies and 4 of every 5 employers with over 500 employees) don’t have to pay it, according to IRS rules. Oh, but the health plans pay it, right?
That is the Obama administration’s official position. In fact, though, as is plainly no surprise, the insurers pass it along to those who pay the premiums. And that means small employers and people who buy their own insurance have to pay. This is one of the worst features of the new law.
The little guy–small business and the self-employed–have to pay. Kaiser Health News said the new taxes end up on customer bills. One customer’s bill went up by $23.14 a month, or $277.68 annually, for the tax. It meant the person’s monthly premium rose from $322.26 to $345.40.
It continues to be unclear how Obamacare will affect Americans abroad.
This article and the comments are well worth a read.
If ObamaCare rollout is the most recent example of U.S. Government (USG) incompetence, then is this what we should expect of FATCA?
I just read this article by Tina Brown of the progressive Daily Beast about the ObamaCare Cock-up. I thought it was the good metaphor (not perfect) for the predictable FATCA Cock-up. The only difference is FATCA is global. Americans don’t know it exists, so don’t know that a Cock-up is in process.
I don’t think I need to expand much on why what she says is generally true, other than to note the opening and closing paragraphs. You can draw your own parallels, as I did mine, but generally this rollout fits the bigger theme, that American government is culturally unable to do these BIG COMPLEX programs well.
The big announcement and lousy follow-through, the technical glitches no one can figure out—not only was the roll out mess utterly predictable, it’s also a sign of our cultural moment.
Obamacare is the wildly complex Rube Goldberg contraption it is because getting the legislation through Congress required so many political trade offs and so many unavoidable deals with so many vested interests. But that’s no excuse. Lost in the raucous cable noise are the voices of desperate people shut out yet again, this time by incompetence. And that’s tragic, not uncool. That’s obscene, not a juicy partisan spin for Ted Cruz. How ironic if Obama’s signature accomplishment becomes instead a metaphor for his presidency’s signature problem: big pronouncements and lousy follow-up, the curse of our times. Continue reading
@badger posted a comment about a YahooNews story with a slightly different approach to the same subject that Jamie Golombek wrote about in the Financial Post. I thought I would pull it out for some wider visibility, as it only has 3 comments so far, and deserves a little attention.
The title is:
“New tax to fund Obamacare could leave American expats in Canada owing Uncle Sam”
The article begins:
What is the most feared government agency in the United States? The FBI, the DEA, the CIA, deadly special-ops soldiers like Seal Team Six?
No, it’s the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), whose long arms stretch around the world and deep into the pockets of Americans living abroad.
Now a new law gives expats a fresh reason to hate the Yankee revenuers.
And Ends:
“There really is a perfect storm gathering for Americans living outside the U.S.,” said Peter Megoudis, a partner with Deloitte & Touche in Toronto.
There’s no easy answer to the problem. Even dual citizens who renounce their American citizenship have to prove they’re square with the IRS and wealthier citizens are subject to a hefty “exit tax.”
You can read the middle.
Summary of all thetaxes resulting form the decision of the #SCOTUS upholding #Obamacare journalofaccountancy.com/News/20125972.… U.S. citizenship too complex
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) June 30, 2012
HR Block excited:#obamacare will have “enormous ramifications for how Americans file taxes each year going forward” hrblock.com/press/Article.…
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) July 1, 2012
Oh my God. How is such bureaucracy possible? Run.
SC upholds Obamacare because it is a tax – Homelanders join #americansabroad in paying tax on “unearned income” bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-2… #FATCA
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) June 28, 2012
In the fall I wrote a post describing how Obamacare is to be funded by taxing “unearned income”. This is one of many examples where the US taxes income that people have never earned. I am cross-posting this post from the RenounceUScitizenship blog. After publishing this post, I noted some very interesting comments, including some based on “technicalities” from Shadow Raider and Eric. These comments raised questions, about what would be included in, and what was meant by “unearned income”. Interesting comments. I have updated this post to acknowledge your comments. But, I will leave it to you to sort out the details. Suffice it to say that Obamacare is a massive tax increase that will make U.S. tax compliance even more difficult. In addition, Obamacare will certainly increase the role of the IRS in your life in a more supervisory way.
Note the following comments of Commissioner Shulman in this regard:
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The situation is indeed dismal. I don’t understand everything in the following article, but I can see that this is going to:
1. Add more bureaucracy and cost to filing your U.S. tax return – it is not clear how this is intended to impact expats (if they are considered at all);
2. Clearly interfere with your ability to invest and plan for retirement. The U.S. has become a nation of forms and bureaucracy. Continue reading
