Obama’s tax holiday for employers

A friend offers the following observations about President Obama’s decision to delay the implementation of the Obamacare employer responsibility provision:

The “delay” in Obamacare doesn’t amount to anything that one can take legal cognizance of.

PPACA provides that, beginning in 2014, employers with more than 50 full-time employees must provide them health insurance or else the employer is subject to a penalty (really a tax per the Roberts court). What came out [on Tuesday] was a statement by the Administration that we’re not planning to “enforce” this statutory requirement – that is, we’re not going to “collect” that tax – until 2015. But what does this “representation” by the government actually amount to? Nothing, it seems to me.

If, at the end of 2014, the feds turned around and told all the big companies to “pay up, you didn’t provide X number of your employees with health insurance in 2014,” what relief would the employers have? None, it seems to me. Estoppel doesn’t run against the government. [The] announcement doesn’t constitute anything, really.

I take this a step further. How can Obama decide for the “independent” IRS what tax laws it will and will not enforce?

Hasn’t he just thrown a lot of gasoline on the fire that is his administration’s politicization of the IRS?

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