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And if you have no refund, they WILL come after your assets. You would have to be really dumb to think they won't. Do you actually think they will just ignore the fact that after a few years of not paying the fine or having a refund for them to take you will owe them a serious amount of money? Not in a million years, they will take your earnings or your property.
I think I'll go with Ezra Klein's explanation as opposed to the fear mongering...
Quote:
What if I don’t want to buy insurance?
First off: Nobody will come knocking down your door, demanding that you purchase a health plan. But if you decide not to purchase coverage, you will have to pay a $95 tax penalty. This would be deducted from your 2015 tax return.
How will the government know if I have health insurance?
You’ll have to tell them, via the taxes that you file for 2014. Starting then, the Internal Revenue Service will send out a form where you’ll fill in the type of health plan you purchased (or, if you didn’t purchase coverage, noting that fact). Employers might hand out pre-populated versions of these forms to make things a little bit easier.
Will the government send gunmen to track me down if I’m not insured?
While this is a popular Obamacare myth, it is, in fact, untrue: The federal government is actually really limited in the action it can take to collect the tax penalty for not purchasing health coverage. It can’t send agents to your door, nor can it put a lien on your house. The most they can do is take the fine out of your tax refund – or, if you’re not getting a refund this year, put it on your tab for next year’s refund.
What if I can’t find an affordable plan? Do I still have to buy something?
Nope! Although it’s the government, not you, who gets to decide what counts as “affordable.” The health care law says that if you can’t find a plan that costs less than 8 percent of your income, then you’re exempt from the requirement to purchase health insurance. This will, obviously, depend a lot on an individual’s circumstances and not the sticker price of the plans sold on the new marketplaces.
If there's no tax refund, where else can the IRS get its $95? Typically, the IRS does have a number of steps by which to recoup unpaid taxes. It can garnish your wages, for example, or, in rare cases, seize property. But with the health mandate, the law's drafters specifically barred the agency from any of those more aggressive tactics.
"In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed by this section," Section 1501 of the Affordable Care Act reads, "Such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure."
If a penalty does not come out of a refund, it does not fully disappear. Instead, it gets carried over to next year's tax filings and held on the filer's account. The Internal Revenue Service is also allowed to charge interest on any unpaid tax penalty (More on that in the very thrilling Sec. 6601 of the Internal Revenue Service Code). The rate currently hovers around 3 percent.
So the tax penalties accumulate, and the interest goes up and up. But even in an extreme example, where someone doesn't pay the health law's penalties for decades, the powers that the Internal Revenue Service has to collect the unpaid fines don't change.
"The IRS remains very clearly limited in its ability to collect the penalty," Livingston says, "And the accumulation over time does not change those legal limitations."
Yes OP welcome to the reality to the wipe out of the middle class. You, the middle class and the rich will be subsiding the low, no responsibility types. See link below
I think I'll go with Ezra Klein's explanation as opposed to the fear mongering...
Um...he's either outright lying or at least misleading. He keeps referencing $95. That only applies for someone who makes less than $9500 a year and only for 2014...who would be on Medicaid anyway. 2.5% of income otherwise.
The rhetoric that I've heard frequently is that young people can not afford Obamacare and they will simply take the $95 tax penalty.
But then I saw this posting on a friend's facebook:
Actual comment from someone who was able to log on to Obamacare website.....
I actually made it through this morning at 8:00 A.M. I have a preexisting condition (Type 1 Diabetes) and my income base was 45K-55K annually I chose tier 2 “Silver Plan” and my monthly premiums came out to $597.00 with $13,988 yearly deductible!!! There is NO POSSIBLE way that I can afford this so I “opt-out” and chose to continue along with no insurance. I received an email tonight at 5:00 P.M. informing me that my fine would be $4,037 and could be attached to my yearly income tax return.
Then you make it to the “REPERCUSSIONS PORTION” for “non-payment” of yearly fine. First, your drivers license will be suspended until paid, and if you go 24 consecutive months with “Non-Payment” and you happen to be a home owner, you will have a federal tax lien placed on your home. You can agree to give your bank information so that they can easy “Automatically withdraw” your “penalties” weekly, bi-weekly or monthly! This by no means is “Free” or even “Affordable.”
{snip}
Your driver's license and lien on your home??? How do they have the power to do any of that? My driver's license is not issued by the feds, and my home has a mortgage from my bank, and if I make it so my tax return is $50 then that is all they can take from me.
Um...he's either outright lying or at least misleading. He keeps referencing $95. That only applies for someone who makes less than $9500 a year and only for 2014...who would be on Medicaid anyway. 2.5% of income otherwise.
Your driver's license and lien on your home??? How do they have the power to do any of that? My driver's license is not issued by the feds, and my home has a mortgage from my bank, and if I make it so my tax return is $50 then that is all they can take from me.
Your Obamascare insurance is offered through your STATE exchange. There is no "Federal" plan. I guess they will notify your home state to revoke your license.
Um...he's either outright lying or at least misleading. He keeps referencing $95. That only applies for someone who makes less than $9500 a year and only for 2014...who would be on Medicaid anyway. 2.5% of income otherwise.
Yes, he was referencing 2014, but it seems that it will be 2% of your family's income starting in 2015 if that is greater than the penalty will be.
Your Obamascare insurance is offered through your STATE exchange. There is no "Federal" plan. I guess they will notify your home state to revoke your license.
The state exchange is a web site, not a regulatory enforcement agency.
What's next, the feds telling the electric company to cut my power, or demand a local arborist chop down my trees or the local humane society take my dog away?
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