IRS Commissioner Debunks GOP Fear-Mongering

[cal04]

We Won’t Audit People To Check Health Insurance Status

Now that health care reform is law, conservatives have come up with a new line of attack to scare the American public: The IRS will be tracking you down if you don’t purchase health insurance. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) fueled the scare in a March 18 press release, announcing the findings of a study by Republican Hill staff:

A new analysis by the Joint Economic Committee and the House Ways & Means Committee minority staff estimates up to 16,500 new IRS personnel will be needed to collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses in the ‘reconciliation’ bill being taken up by the U.S. House of Representatives this weekend.

“When most people think of health care reform they think of more doctors exams, not more IRS exams,” says U.S. Congressman Kevin Brady, the top House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee. “Isn’t the federal government already intruding enough into our lives? We need thousands of new doctors and nurses in America, not thousands more IRS agents.”

This news quickly spread to conservative media outlets, which hyperbolized the claim with statements like: the “IRS will now oversee health control and determine whether you are compliant,” and the IRS will now be responsible “for finding and punishing those who don’t” have “acceptable” health insurance. An article on the Daily Caller published an article headlined “IRS looking to hire thousands of tax agents to enforce health care laws” accompanied by a picture of armed soldiers.

Yesterday during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing, IRS Commissioner Daniel Shulman made clear that all these claims are nothing but misinformation. He said that, essentially, Brady’s analysis was premature because the IRS is still figuring out the resources it will need “to implement the tax provisions” in the health care legislation. He also completely refuted the notion that IRS agents would be going after people to see if they have acceptable health care:

REP. RON KIND (D-WI): And IRS agents are not going to go out and auditing taxpayers to verify if they have obtained acceptable health insurance, will they?

SHULMAN: No. … t’s probably worth me being very clear because I think there have been some misconceptions out there. The way we envision this working is that HHS, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the exchanges will be working with the insurance companies to determine what is acceptable coverage.

All that will happen with the IRS is similar to a current 1099 where a bank sends IRS a statement that says “here’s the interest” someone owes, and they send it to the taxpayer. We expect to get a simple form — that we won’t look behind — that says this person has acceptable health coverage. There are not going to be any discussions about health coverage with an IRS employee.

Shulman added that the role of the IRS is going to be “the tax portions of this, not the health portions of this,” including helping educate individuals and businesses learn about the tax incentives they qualify for.
Watch it: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/26/irs-health/

Transcript:

[Birthmark]

1. Don't you impose reality...

...on their perfectly good fantasy of being victims of government oppression! It's what the Tea(r) Party does, after all.

[kctim]

2. Sorry,

but Shulman is playing politics. It will be the job of the IRS to insure compliance, just as they do now. And it will be the job of the IRS to collect from those who do not comply.
Even though they will not be discussing health coverage, they will be determining that the sheep have properly proven they have it.

IRS participation would be pointless if they did not.