If the Obamacare individual mandate isn’t a tax – and the IRS
has no lawful power to collect it as a tax – then why did I receive a
threatening letter from the IRS claiming very much otherwise?
The letter states that I “have an unpaid shared responsibility
payment” of $695 that is owed – imagine that! – because I did not sign up for
Obamacare or otherwise send money to the health insurance mafia. The mafia
which succeeded in hiring the federal government as its Luca Brasi – its
enforcer – to threaten and bully people into buying insurance.
This is an important distinction. Insurance is just a policy; it
is not medical care. It means the insurance mafia may pay some of the cost of
medical care, some of the time. But you will pay for the insurance all of the
time. This is why the insurance mafia is a mafia.
Mafias use force against unwilling victims, to line their
pockets. They will claim it’s for “protection” – a synonym for “coverage.”
Obamacare is doubly outrageous for this reason. Bad enough that
this country has slipped so far away from the idea that government exists to
keep the peace and toward the idea that it is our Mommy, from which we are
never to be emancipated – like Down Syndrome children.
But it is a far worse thing that our liberty and our money have
been taken from us for the financial gain of private business. Socialized
medicine is objectionable on many grounds but at least in countries where it
exists, the profit element is removed.
In this country, it is all about profit – at gunpoint. You are,
after all, not being asked. Because you are not free to say no.
Not without being threatened with violence, including murderous
violence.
The mafia is enormously rich; its executives rake in seven
figure incomes and spend their days in fancy suites in high-rise office
buildings with marble foyers and chromed/paneled elevators.
These parasites use the government to pluck us – like the Geese
who exist to provide down for pillows. Like the plucked goose, we may receive
“care” at some point. But not necessarily. It is at the discretion of the mafia
– which may always raise the price of its protection/coverage.
Whereas we have no discretion about paying them. Not for care –
but for “coverage.” ‘
And what if “care” isn’t necessary?
Why pay for what one does not need?
This is the reasoning I followed when, after my divorce, I
decided to skip “coverage.” I have not been to a doctor’s office in years.
Because I have not had need of doctoring. I’m healthy and fit. I take care of
myself and rely on good habits and good genetics. That is my health insurance.
I judge the paying of large sums of money each month – several hundred dollars,
at least – for “coverage” I don’t use and probably won’t need to be a very poor
use of my money. I consider it a much better use of my money to save it in the
event I need it for something – including medical care.
But if I don’t need medical care, I will still have my money. If
I buy “coverage,” I will not. So I did not buy “coverage.”
And – like many Americans – was under the impression that when
the Supreme Court somehow discovered the authority in the Constitution for the
federal government to mandate that Americans buy coverage, it was only able to
do so by parsing the so-called Individual Mandate – the obligation to buy
“coverage” – as a not-tax.
Suposedly, the not-tax differed from the income tax and other
actual taxes in that the feds could not collect it in the same manner as other
taxes.
There was an Out.
For us.
The odd ducks who for reasons which seem judicious to us prefer
not to be “covered,” prefer not to be taxed both by the government and the
insurance mafia. That Out was – so we were led to believe – that the government
lacked the power to tax us for not buying “coverage.” It could only deduct from
our tax refunds a kind of punishment levy. This being the so-called “shared
responsibility payment” described in the letter sent to me.
But it could not otherwise force us to pay.
I was told exactly this by my accountant – who ought to know.
And yet, here is the letter. Possibly, it is braggadocious – a bluff, written
in the government’s typically threatening style but without real teeth. It
reads: “You owe this payment because one or more members of your tax household
didn’t have minimum essential health coverage.”
Italics for reasons of hilarity – and depression.
“Essential”? To whom?
I do not consider it the least bit essential, else I would have
purchased it. You know, like food and rent. Those things are essential to me.
Being made to hand over 20 percent of my income to a private, for-profit mafia
to be “covered” – maybe – for services I neither use nor desire for that very
reason is as “essential” as I am a “customer” of the IRS.
My accountant insists they – the IRS – can’t do anything, in
terms of using actual force to make me hand over what they style my “unpaid
shared responsibility payment” of $695 unless, at some point, I am “owed” a tax
refund. This, of course, is another perversion of language. A refund?
Do muggers give refunds?
At any rate, my accountant says they can only extract the
“unpaid shared responsibility payment” from any tax refund I may be owed in the
future. So as long as I am careful to end the tax year owing them money (sigh,
an even more despicable inversion of language – and morality) they cannot do
more than frown angrily and send angry letters.
But, I am concerned – and perhaps you should be, too.
If you are like me and have elected to not purchase “coverage,”
for whatever reason (on the reasoning that you are a free man and thus it’s
none of the government’s business whether you are “covered”).
Here’s why.
On the second page of the letter, I find the following:
“Pay $695 by July 2, 2018 to avoid interest charges. We charge
interest if you don’t pay the SRP in full within 21 days from the date of this
notice.”
The IRS is infamous for piling on interest – and penalties –
which often ultimately dwarf the original amount “owed.” Do those of us who
choose not to buy “coverage” stand in peril of having the Unpaid Shared
Responsibility Payment we supposedly “owe” double or triple – or worse – over
time, on account of interest (and penalties)?
Is that the means by which they will force everyone to pay up?
It is very worrisome, given $695 – in my case – could quickly
metastasize into thousands of dollars. And that’s just the Unpaid Shared
Responsibility Payment for 2017. What about this year’s Unpaid Shared
Responsibility Payment? I am already up to $1,400 – last year’s $695 plus this
year’s, since I have not bought “coverage” this year, either.
Will the filthy animals bankrupt me (and others) with interest
and penalties – and can those interest and penalty assaults be applied to my
assets? Can the IRS, for example, put a lien on my home? Levy – seize – my bank
account?
These are very important questions and I intend to obtain the
answers.
Stay tuned.
. . .
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