Another day, another broken Obamacare promise:
Employers with fewer than 50 employees were promised a break by not having to provide group health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
But now the IRS has served notice that under the rule that has been in effect since July 1 such employers are subject to $100 per worker per day excise tax if they help their employees with their health-care costs.
That could amount to a staggering $36,500 per worker annual tax.
Presumably, employers can avoid that onerous tax by opting not to help their staff cover the costs of purchasing health insurance. In Mississippi, about one in seven small businesses provide such assistance to their employees, and Obama's IRS intends to hold them "accountable":
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.”
“The rule punishes small businesses for providing the only health insurance support many can afford – a contribution to help employees pay premiums for their individual or family policies or to help finance direct payments for medical services,” the department said.
In Mississippi, small businesses are the top job creators in the state. As noted, the rule doesn't appear in the legislation drafted by Democratics, passed by Democratics, and signed into law by a Democratic; it was added as an afterthought by IRS bureaucrats. In theory, it should not carry the force of law, but in reality, that's exactly what it does.
This is why every federal agency should be required to obtain Congressional approval of every regulation that they decide to make up. In the USA, government is supposed to be constrained to rule by consent of the governed. Anything else is tyranny.
