U.S. SENATE — U.S. Senator Steve Daines today urged Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Kevin Brady to include a full repeal of the individual mandate in H.R. 1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
“I’m encouraging the Speaker and Chairman Brady to include eliminating the individual mandate in the House tax bill – a fine on the low income in our country,” Daines stated. “It’s important we take every opportunity to repeal this costly tax and this is a prime opportunity to repeal the tax.”
Obamacare imposes a tax penalty on Americans who don’t buy insurance and in 2014 and 2015 alone, they collected over $5 billion dollars in fines. Billions more were collected in 2016. In 2015, nearly 30,000 Montanans had to pay the IRS $14,341,000 for choosing not to purchase Obamacare, an average tax of $487 per household. 75 percent of Montana households who pay this tax make less than $50,000 per year.
On September 29, 2017, Daines introduced the Repeal and Refund Act, to retroactively repeal the individual mandate and refund everyone who has paid it.
Daines took to the Senate floor to blast the poverty tax and shared just a few stories of the 34,250 Montanans who paid the poverty tax in 2014. Montanans paid nearly $7.8 million dollars to the IRS – 40 percent Montanans who paid Obamacare’s poverty tax made less than $25,000 and 80 percent made less than 50,000.
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