2013’s $1 Trillion Obamacare Tax Hike

From Americans for Tax Reform and the CBO:

Obamacare contains twenty new or higher taxes. Five of the taxes hit for the first time on January 1.  In total, Americans face a net $1 trillion tax hike for the years 2013-2022, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Just a couple examples:

The Obamacare “Haircut” for Medical Itemized Deductions: Currently, those Americans facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI).  This tax increase imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. By limiting this deduction, Obamacare widens the net of taxable income for the sickest Americans.  This tax provision will most harm near retirees and those with modest incomes but high medical bills.

Seems to me every time government gives haircuts to citizens, things are going badly.

The Obamacare Medical Device Tax:  Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year.  In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will increase the cost of your health care – making everything from pacemakers to artificial hips more expensive.

Bolded for emphasis.

That means if your company normally makes $100 million in sales, you owe $2.3 million in taxes.  If you end up just breaking even, with no profit for your company after your expenses, salaries, and production costs for the year, you end up still owing $2.3 million in taxes.

Pretend you’re a household that makes $50,000 per year, and you already pay taxes, so you’re making about $40,000/year.  After the year ends, with costs of housing, insurance, utilities, food, gas, medical bills and everything else, you end up straight up breaking even for the year.  Then the government says “you owe another $1,150”, because that’s 2.3% of your gross income.

And do you know what kind of agencies enforce excise taxes?  Bet you can get it in one.