Trump's IRS stages a stealth attack on Obamacare
The Internal Revenue Service has become the first agency to follow President Trumps directive to start undermining the Affordable Care Act.
In a quiet rule change, but an important one, the IRS has told tax preparers and software firms that it wont automatically reject tax returns that fail to state whether the tax filer had health insurance during the year. That effectively loosens enforcement of the ACAs individual mandate. It appears to be a direct response to Trumps Jan. 20 executive order requiring federal agencies minimize...the economic and regulatory burdens of the Act.
We observed at the time that the executive order would cripple ACA insurance exchanges, not only by signaling the Trump Administrations open hostility to Obamacare, but by kicking a leg out from the regulatory stool supporting the act.
The IRS action its the first manifestation of that. The agency hasnt announced its rule change publicly, but it was picked up by Peter Suderman of Reason and Kathleen Pender of the San Francisco Chronicle, who both reported it Tuesday.
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http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-irs-obamacare-20170215-story.html