I received an email with a horror story about Obamacare enforcement. The penalty seemed too high and the penalty procedures didn't seem right at all. So I went to Snopes. They addressed my questions and I was right. The email is basically false in its details.
But will it always be false?
I'm not talking about slippery slopes or anything. My question is that the debunking relied on Obamacare statutes that were enacted with penalties for failure to buy health insurance.
But the United States Supreme Court upheld the law at least in part by saying that the penalty is actually a tax.
So if the enacted penalty is actually a tax, won't more general IRS powers on enforcing tax collection take precedence over procedures that apply to a penalty that is no longer a penalty?
Those IRS powers are immense. We run deficits so the people in charge of bringing in revenue aren't in forgiving moods most days. Their bosses surely aren't sending dog whistle signals to go easy on the collection part of their job, eh?
But I decided not to blog my speculation. I worked for years in the legislative arena but I am not an attorney.
And I did swear that I was not going to complain any more about the train wreck unfolding on this new domestic law.
Then I read this from Megan McArdle about the president's decision to waive enforcement and "let" (as if they can at this late date) insurance companies reissue noncompliant policies now being cancelled (tip to Instapundit):
The administration is not changing the rules, just declining to enforce them against the insurers. This is becoming a pattern: Obama’s position on the law seems to be that it’s his law, and therefore the law is whatever he and his appointees say it is. That’s dangerous for all sorts of reasons, not least because it makes them vulnerable to court action.
Presumably they will also not enforce the mandate against people who have grandfathered plans. But that raises an interesting legal issue. Remember that in 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the mandate was a tax. And as a lawyer of my acquaintance points out, taxes have to be enforced uniformly; the Internal Revenue Service can pick and choose who it audits, but it cannot pick and choose who has to obey the law. If it declines to enforce the mandate against grandfathered consumers, it's conceivably opening itself up to a bunch of legal challenges. [emphasis added]
So can the IRS uniformly enforce Obamacare taxes with measures intended for "penalties" that are less sweeping than those for other taxes?
Seriously, just what is the law of the land on this enforcement issue?
