United Liberty

After months of both parties trying to score political points along with repealing the 1099 tax reporting requirement that was included in ObamaCare, the Senate finally passed a measure to eliminate this onerous provision in an 87 to 12 vote:

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday voted to repeal a tax-reporting requirement contained in last year’s health-care law that was widely criticized for being too burdensome, the first significant change to the law and one of the few bipartisan acts of Congress so far this year.
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Republicans and Democrats had agreed that repealing the tax-reporting requirement was a good idea, but had differed over how to compensate for it. The approved repeal would make up for taxes lost to vendor evasion by requiring low- and middle-income Americans who receive a tax credit for buying their own health insurance to repay the credit if their income winds up being too high. The repayment obligation would show up as a tax charge during the tax filing season

“How would most middle-class families deal with a tax bill of $10,000 or more just because their income may have increased $1 above the eligibility limits during the year they got accepted?” said Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.), who tried and failed to repeal the mechanism for dealing with the cost of the repeal.

The National Taxpayers Union, a group that focuses on cutting taxes, has estimated that the repeal would cost $19.7 billion. The group estimated that the losses would be offset by taking back $19.9 billion in overpayments.

Since the House has already repealed the provision, the measure will now head to President Barack Obama’s desk for his signature.