[ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine"

[spike]

>... On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato
>...Subject: Re: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans
are "asinine"

Il 05/11/2013 04:24, Kelly Anderson ha scritto:
>>... LOL. That will work for a few years, until the penalties are so large
that you have to pay attention to them.

>...The problem with the penalties large enough is, after a threshold, they
become irrelevant.

Mirco, they are irrelevant already, if there is no legal way to collect
them.

>...If they transform the penalty in a criminal matter, they are threatening
all and any citizen and resident in the US...

Ja, which is why the law is written as it is, specifically forbidding
criminal sanctions.  This is an interesting subtlety for you legal eagles.
When O-care was written, they already knew it was breaking new legal ground
in several ways: if it is considered a tax, it is a unique example of a flat
tax levied at the federal level (the minimum tax next year is 285 bucks
minimum for a family next year, 2085 per family by 2016.)  It has a minimum,
regardless of earnings, so that is the only flat tax at the federal level I
have ever of-heard.  

Second:  When the law was written they knew they would need to defend it
before the Supreme Court.  But the government's argument wasn't based on
declaring  O-care a tax; they didn't want to go that route.  Reason: it
places control over the law in the hands of the house of representatives.
We have one party who voted unanimously against the law, and has continued
to vote against it ever since.  That party now controls the house.  For the
current house minority party to prevent defunding of the law, they had to go
to extraordinary, and extreme measures, such as threatening to default on
our loans.  This time, they managed to blame the house majority party, but
how many times will that work?  And how do they expect the majority party to
cooperate when they continue to insult, rather than doing everything to
patch up the divide?  Consider the how the press has treated the house
majority party.  Consider the subject line of this thread.  Is that the way
to treat your own boss?  The majority party in the house is the boss over
O-care.

>...Is it possible to give waivers to avoid the sanction of a criminal
law?...

We all have a waiver of avoiding criminal sanction already.

>...But fundamentally, you are talking to morph the IRS in the Sheriff of
Nottingham and his Soldiers...

Ja, and it looks to me like this gets you around all those inconveniences
for the government found in the first ten amendments to the constitution.
The IRS does not need to read you your rights (because once they are on your
case, you don't have any.)  They don't need to convince a judge of anything.
If we allow this to go forward, we just took a giant leap down Hayek's road
to serfdom.

>...Boots at the door, kick, enter, take stuff, arrest people, etc.
We know how ended in England, I do not think it would end very well in the
US given the 3-500 hundred millions guns in civilian hands...

The IRS was specifically forbidden this power in order to prevent exactly
this scenario.

>...What criminal sanction would be applicable if the IRS could apply it?...

None.

>...How many years of jail people would receive for refusing to pay the
"tax"?

None.

>...How many of them would fight against being arrested? Maybe not the first
time, but the following.  Mirco

_______________________________________________

There was a good reason why that no-criminal sanction clause was added.
When the law was written it was never envisioned as a tax.  The government
knew it would need to defend the legality of the law, so they designed a
strange hybrid: the opt-out fees are collected by the IRS, but the
justification for the fee was never part of the government's defense.  It
was justified as legal under the welfare clause of the constitution: the
government is allowed to "...promote the general welfare..."  OK then.  If
you are threatening the opt-outs with liens against property, levies against
bank accounts or prison, it becomes rather difficult to argue this scheme in
any way promotes the general welfare.  So they had to write that clause in
there.

Now of course it is unlikely to be modified, since the House controls the
law, and they haven't been treated well.  So one can scarcely expect them to
refrain from telling the minority party in the house to go to hell.  All
this completely ignores the fact that O-care is intentionally designed to be
difficult to modify anyway.

spike