Comprehensive List of Tax Hikes in the Baucus Finance Committee Draft

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Americans for Tax Reform today
released its initial assessment of the healthcare plan outlined by Sen. Max
Baucus (D-Mont.):

Individual Mandate Tax. If you don't sign up for health insurance, you will
have to pay a tax in the following range:

Single Family
100-300% FPL $750 $1500

300+% FPL $900 $3800

Employer Mandate Tax. $400 per employee if health coverage is not offered.
Note: this is a huge incentive to drop coverage, as $400 is much less than the
average plan cost of $11,000 for families or $5000 for singles (Source: AHIP)

Backdoor Death of HSAs. By requiring that all plans (besides the few that are
grandfathered) provided first-dollar coverage for most services, there would
be no HSA-qualifying plans available from the Massachusetts-like exchanges

Excise Tax on High-Cost Health Plans. New 35% excise tax on health insurance
plans to the extent they exceed $21000 in cost ($8000 single)

Report Employer Health Spending on W-2. This is clearly a setup for the easy
individual taxation of employer-provided health insurance down the road.

Cap Flex-Spending Account (FSA) Contributions at $2000. Currently unlimited.

Eliminate tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in
coordination with Medicare Part D

Medicine Cabinet Tax. Americans would no longer be able to purchase
over-the-counter medicines with their FSA, HSA, or HRA

Increase Non-Qualified HSA Distribution Penalty from 10% to 20%. This makes
HSAs less attractive, and paves the way for HSA pre-verification

Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting. Currently, only non-corporations
providing property or services for a business must be issued at 1099-MISC.
This would expand the requirement to corporations doing business with other
businesses. The amount of reporting needed for an average business would be
huge. Paves the way for full information reporting to the IRS.

Various industry tax grabs based on market share. $2.3 billion: PhRMA; $6
billion: health insurance providers; $750 million: clinical labs; $4 billion:
medical device manufacturers

Americans for Tax Reform is a non-partisan coalition of taxpayers and taxpayer
groups who oppose all tax increases. For more information or to arrange an
interview please contact John Kartch at (202) 785-0266 or by email at
jkartch@atr.org.

SOURCE Americans for Tax Reform

John Kartch of Americans for Tax Reform, +1-202-785-0266; JKARTCH@ATR.ORG