Obamacare to punish small businesses for helping employees
Finding out what’s in it: The IRS has announced that the annual fine to businesses — even businesses with less than 50 employees — for helping employees pay their medical expenses will be a mere $36,500.
“We were told over and over during the Obamacare discussions that if you had less than 50 employees there’s no requirement to provide coverage, so you don’t have to worry about any cost factor,” said Ron Aldridge, Mississippi director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses. … If a company has five employees, the total tax would be $182,500. A “large” employer with 50 employees that did not provide insurance in compliance with the Affordable Care Act, would be subject to $2,000 per employee, with the first 30 employees exempt, for a total of $40,000, Aldridge said.
And then there’s this gem:
The Mississippi Insurance Department said: “The rule appears nowhere in the Affordable Care Act but was developed by the Obama administration’s regulation writers at the IRS.” [emphasis mine]
Not only is this IRS rule illegal, as it isn’t based on anything written in the Obamacare law, it starkly illustrates the inhumane attitude of the Obama administration and people there who wrote it. The rule demands that employers look the other way if their employees are in trouble because of medical expenses. It also surprises everyone by suddenly imposing Obamacare on all businesses, even tiny ones which had been promised they were exempt from the law.
In fact, based on the information in this article, even an independent contractor like myself could be found in violation of this rule and subject to fines.. Essentially, I am not allowed to use my profits from my business to pay for my medical costs,
In other words, this administration wants to hurt people.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either. IMPORTANT! If you donate enough to get a book, please email me separately to tell me which book you want and the address to mail it to.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Finding out what’s in it: The IRS has announced that the annual fine to businesses — even businesses with less than 50 employees — for helping employees pay their medical expenses will be a mere $36,500.
“We were told over and over during the Obamacare discussions that if you had less than 50 employees there’s no requirement to provide coverage, so you don’t have to worry about any cost factor,” said Ron Aldridge, Mississippi director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses. … If a company has five employees, the total tax would be $182,500. A “large” employer with 50 employees that did not provide insurance in compliance with the Affordable Care Act, would be subject to $2,000 per employee, with the first 30 employees exempt, for a total of $40,000, Aldridge said.
And then there’s this gem:
The Mississippi Insurance Department said: “The rule appears nowhere in the Affordable Care Act but was developed by the Obama administration’s regulation writers at the IRS.” [emphasis mine]
Not only is this IRS rule illegal, as it isn’t based on anything written in the Obamacare law, it starkly illustrates the inhumane attitude of the Obama administration and people there who wrote it. The rule demands that employers look the other way if their employees are in trouble because of medical expenses. It also surprises everyone by suddenly imposing Obamacare on all businesses, even tiny ones which had been promised they were exempt from the law.
In fact, based on the information in this article, even an independent contractor like myself could be found in violation of this rule and subject to fines.. Essentially, I am not allowed to use my profits from my business to pay for my medical costs,
In other words, this administration wants to hurt people.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either. IMPORTANT! If you donate enough to get a book, please email me separately to tell me which book you want and the address to mail it to.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
This follows the Cadillac tax, which goes up every year in an effort to get employers to stop offering health insurance as a benefit. Sure, these businesses don’t have to buy health insurance for their workers as claimed but instead they are punished if they do. I don’t know how this is enforceable and maybe that is the intent.
“The Mississippi Department of Insurance said in a prepared statement that if the small employer helps employees by paying their premiums, reimbursing medical expenses or raising salaries to compensate for policies bought by the individuals, the company is considered to be in violation of IRS Code Section 4980D.”
How can the state determine if a raise was due to performance or medical reasons? How can they possibly say that companies are not allowed to pay their workers more money, for whatever reason? It is so subjective, it is likely to be abused by the state and maybe that is the intent. This is also a backdoor way to outlaw HSAs.
This is the funny part,
“Pepper Crutcher, a Jackson lawyer with Balch & Bingham who specializes in ACA compliance, said that, while the IRS situation looks dire, “my guess is there will be a congressional fix” and President Barack Obama will approve it.”
It shouldn’t take an act of congress to fix something the executive did by mandate. Obama could order this rule away just like he ordered its existence.
Testing missing comments
“You have to pass the bill before you can know whats in the bill”
You find out what’s in the bill five years later when we make it up in the joint executive-legislative branch we’ve established in the Obama regime. We don’t need to follow no stinking constitution.
Because in Obama’s liberal world of “fairness”, its more fair to punish a lot of people and companies in the middle class to serve his agenda. We see this in healthcare, energy costs, IRS, banking. Social justice at all costs. Welcome to liberal Utopia.
Robert,
You wrote: “Essentially, I am not allowed to use my profits from my business to pay for my medical costs”
What are you crabbing about? It isn’t as though *you* built your business:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKjPI6no5ng (one minute)
Obama pointed out that you just aren’t smart enough, and you just didn’t work hard enough to be the one who built your own business. (You are being Grubered by Obama.)
The in-context quote is much worse than the out of context quote.
But worse than denying you the ability to spend your own money as you please — and forcing you to spend your own money as the government pleases — is that the ACA allows any number of panels, councils, and committees to be set up for any number of purposes. Who is to say that the president is not his own panel of one set up to make any changes he desires? He simply hasn’t announced that he set up his own panel or what he will do with it.
The IRS may be its own committee, allowed to make up any rule it wants for any reason that can vaguely be associated with health.
For all we know, the ACA is set up so that a council will change it into single-payer without any further legislation, Congressional oversight, or SCOTUS review.
It isn’t as if the ACA single handedly turns this country into a tyranny, or anything.
The article said: “Something needs to be done quickly before our No. 1 job creators are left holding the bag and are put out of business.” However, you have already noted that the brainiacs ruling Europe are likewise destroying their own small businesses, so it is possible — even likely, if progressives in the US as in Europe dislike small businesses (obviously, they didn’t build theirs, either) — that our small businesses are headed the same way as Europe’s:
http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/new-eu-tax-law-puts-thousands-out-of-business/
Because, after all, you didn’t build that, Thy Lord Gov’t did:
http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/you-didnt-build-that/
[Um, mostly sarcasm, but some is frighteningly serious.]
They are crazy Marxists / Leftists / Liberals, they are not stupid.