The complicated process of signing up for Obamacare is
now being matched by IRS instructions to help Americans figure out how
much in healthcare taxes they owe Uncle Sam.
The agency has issued 21 pages of instructions, complete with links to at least three long forms and nine tip sheets.
It is geared to those who have Obamacare or who owe a fine, dubbed
“shared responsibility payment,” for refusing to get health insurance.
The IRS warned that everybody must have health insurance or pay the tax. Keep on reading…
PARIS (Reuters) -
When President Francois Hollande unveiled a "super-tax" on the rich in
2012, some feared an exodus of business, sporting and artistic talent.
One adviser warned it was a Socialist step too far that would turn
France into "Cuba without sun".
Two years on, with the tax due to expire at the end of this month,
the mass emigration has not happened. But the damage to France's appeal
as a home for top earners has been great, and the pickings from the levy
paltry.
"The reform clearly damaged France's reputation and competitiveness,"
said Jorg Stegemann, head of Kennedy Executive, an executive search
firm based in France and Germany.
"It clearly has become harder to attract international senior managers to come to France than it was," he added.
Hollande first floated the 75-percent super-tax on earnings over 1
million euros ($1.2 million) a year in his 2012 campaign to oust his
conservative rival Nicolas Sarkozy. It fired up left-wing voters and
helped him unseat the incumbent.
Yet ever since, it has been a
thorn in his side, helping little in France's effort to bring its public
deficit within European Union limits and mixing the message just as
Hollande sought to promote a more pro-business image. The adviser who
made the "Cuba" gag was Emmanuel Macron, the ex-banker who is now his
economy minister.
People without insurance are running out of time to avoid the hefty
ObamaCare penalties that the IRS will be handing down in 2016.
Consumers
face a Feb. 15, 2015, deadline to buy insurance, after which those
without coverage could be hit with fines of $325 per adult or 2 percent
of family income, whichever is higher.
Uninsured people
looking to escape the penalties are turning to the exchanges before they
close, while insurance companies and tax preparers are seizing on the
looming tax hit as a business opportunity.One recent mass
mailer from CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield obtained by The Hill warned
potential customers in the Washington, D.C., region that going without
health insurance coverage would come with a steep cost.
“When you don’t have health insurance ... you put your financial
security at risk,” the mailer states. “That’s because under the new
Affordable Care Act legislation, millions of Americans will have to pay
an increased penalty tax of at least 2 percent of their income in 2015
if they go uninsured.”
U.S. Olympic gold medal winners could owe almost $10,000 to the IRS
As
230 U.S. Olympic athletes gear up to compete in the 2014 Winter Games,
the only thing colder than the slopes at Sochi is the fact that any
prizes awarded by the U.S. Olympic Commission (USOC) will be taxed by
the IRS. Many Americans don't realize that the U.S. taxes income earned
abroad, and as such even the winnings of Olympic athletes are subject to
the reach of the IRS.
The
USOC awards prizes to U.S. Olympic medal winners: $25,000 for gold,
$15,000 for silver, and $10,000 for bronze. Relative to each athlete's
income tax bracket, some top earners such as Shaun
The new sales tax on software and computer services looks doomed as
Democratic leaders on Beacon Hill, including Haverhill state Rep. Brian
Dempsey, said yesterday they support a repeal in the face of business
opposition.
Dempsey, chairman of the House Ways and Means budget
committee, said he supported repeal of the 6.25 percent tax, enacted as
part of a $500 million transportation package this summer, once affected
businesses expressed their opposition after the package was passed.
Momentum
toward repeal snowballed this week as several top Democratic officials
abandoned support for the tax, which business leaders worried would have
a negative impact on the state economy.
Republicans, including
state Reps. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester and James Lyons, R-Andover, filed a
bill repealing the tax earlier this week. Gov. Deval Patrick, who
originally proposed the tax in January as part of a $1.9 billion
transportation and education plan, announced his support for repeal
Tuesday. Yesterday, House Speaker Robert DeLeo, D-Winthrop, and Senate
President Therese Murray, D-Plymouth, said at a news conference that
they supported repeal and would schedule votes in their chambers. Keep on reading...
You may think this number is so high ($3,000,000) that is won't ever affect you, but this is the administration that thinks $200,000 make you a rich person.
The budget President Barack Obama will submit on April 10
will contain a proposal that would prohibit individuals from
accumulating more than $3 million in Individual Retirement Accounts
(IRAs) and tax-preferred retirement accounts.
According to a White House statement,
the Obama administration believes the current rules allow some wealthy
individuals “to accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts,
substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of
retirement saving.”
“The budget would limit an individual’s total balance across
tax-preferred accounts to an amount sufficient to finance an annuity of
not more than $205,000 per year in retirement, or about $3 million in
2013,” the statement said. “This proposal would raise $9 billion over 10
years.”
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France’s Socialist government is considering replacing its stricken 75 per cent top income tax rate on earnings above €1m, with a 65-66 per cent rate on households earning more than €2m.
The proposed new rate is working its way through the National
Assembly as part of budget measures aimed at redressing France’s growing
public deficit.
But it has come under fire from Christian Eckert, the Socialist head of
the assembly’s budget committee, who said it did not fulfil President
François Hollande’s emblematic manifesto promise.
This is more likely to increase tobacco smuggling than revenue...
CHICAGO • Taxes on cigarettes sold in Cook County are going up by one dollar a pack.
Cook
County Board President Toni Preckwinkle says the tax, which takes
effect Friday, is expected to generate more than $25 million annually
for the Cook County Health and Hospitals System.
She says higher taxes also will help lower smoking rates, including by discouraging people from starting.
The
price of a pack of cigarettes could be near $11 in Chicago, $6.67 of
which is city, county and state taxes. Only New York City -- at $6.86
in taxes -- slaps on higher taxes.
President Francois Hollande’s 75
percent millionaire-tax is unconstitutional because it fails to
guarantee taxpayer equality, France’s top court ruled today.
The tax, one of Hollande’s campaign promises, had become a
focal point of discontent among entrepreneurs and other wealth
creators, some of whom have quit French shores as a result. The
ruling comes as the president seeks to cut France’s public
deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product next year from a
projected 4.5 percent this year.
“Politically, this has an impact because it was a symbol
for French public opinion, and was considered abroad as the
emblem of French tax excess, of French tax hell,” said
Dominique Barbet, senior economist at BNP Paribas SA in Paris.
“In deficit terms, it’s truly negligible.”
In a letter
to Majority Leader Harry Reid, 18 Democrat senators and senators-elect
have asked for “a delay in the implementation” of the Obamacare medical
device tax. Like most of the significant tax increases in Obamacare,
the medical device tax is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2013,
conveniently after the 2012 presidential election.
Each of the 18 Democrat signatories voted for or supported Obamacare in the first place.
Democrats should have listened to Republicans or at least read the darn bill...
POTUS: “I’m running to make sure that taxes aren’t raised a dime on your family’s first $250,000 of income. That's the path forward."
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 1, 2012
The fraud involves the federal government’s Individual Taxpayer Identification Number program. The U.S. Treasury inspector general found 15,795 numbers assigned to a Phoenix address. That must be a really big house. This isn't small potatoes. 10 addresses received $86.4 million in fraudulent tax refunds. Of course, that is peanuts when it comes to Obama pandering to his Latino base.
A recently released report shows widespread tax fraud in connection with the federal government’s Individual Taxpayer Identification Number program.
The U.S. Treasury inspector general report accuses the IRS of discouraging employees from reviewing applications for the ID numbers, which are generally from non-resident workers.
The inspector general specifically said there were 154 mailing addresses that were used 1,000 or more times on applications, including 15,795 numbers assigned to a Phoenix address.
The report, which evaluated the processing year 2011, also found inadequate controls can result in the numbers being assigned to people who have not proved their identity or foreign status, which can result in fraudulent tax returns.
The inspector general also found 10 individual addresses were used for filing 53,994 tax returns and receiving $86.4 million in fraudulent tax refunds.
Somehow, this will make more people drink juice. I have to wonder what kind of juice Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) is drinking.
(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said on Wednesday that Congress ought to look at imposing a federal tax on soda pop.
“We have to address the situation in the marketplace,” DeLauro said at a press conference on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. “Right now, the least expensive beverages are often those with the least value to our health like regular cola or juice drinks that are only 10 percent juice.
“But I will tell you that if you’re paying $3.49 for juice and 79 cents for soda, if you are in a low-income family and you have to stretch the dollar, you don’t need a rocket scientist to tell you what you’re going to buy,” DeLauro said. “You’re going to go for the 79 cents and maybe, quite frankly, one of the things that we ought to look at and one of the things we ought to consider is a soda tax.”
According to a search of FEC contributor data, employees of the Internal Revenue Service have a strong preference in this year’s election. Donors who list their employer as “Internal Revenue Service” or “IRS” have donated $26,538 to President Obama’s campaign, and just $2,340 to Mitt Romney’s campaign.
