The CBO letter to Boehner shows about $318 billion — a third of the $1 trillion in net revenues — would come from tax increases on upper-income taxpayers to help fund Medicare. (See Table 2, “Additional Hospital Insurance Tax.”) Beginning Jan. 1, taxpayers started paying an additional 0.9 percent Medicare tax on income above $200,000 (for individuals) and $250,000 (for families), and a 3.8 percent tax on investment earnings above those thresholds.
In addition to upper-income taxpayers, the law will impose new taxes and fees on businesses — particularly in the health care field. Another $165 billion in new revenue would come from an annual fee on drug manufacturers ($34.2 billion), a 2.3 percent excise tax on manufacturers and importers of some medical devices ($29.1 billion), and an annual fee on health insurance providers ($101.7 billion). (The revenue estimates for each industry come from a June 2012 JCT report used by the CBO for its report.)
In addition, the CBO says businesses that do not offer health insurance for their employees are expected to pay $106 billion in penalties over the 10-year period.
Those six provisions total $589 billion over 10 years. Two other changes in the business tax code push the total to more than $600 billion — about half of the $1.2 trillion in total new revenues.
This is not to say that some middle-income taxpayers wonÂ’t pay to help finance the expansion of health care for millions of Americans.
The CBO estimates that the law will raise about $106 billion from penalties on individuals who fail to buy insurance — the so-called “individual mandate.” But, as we have written before, less than half of the penalty revenue (about 46 percent) will come from taxpayers earning under $120,000.
Also, the CBO estimates that there will be $216 billion in “associated effects of coverage provisions on tax revenues.” Put simply, the CBO assumes that employees who drop or lose their employer-sponsored health care at work will receive higher pay to compensate them. As a result, the government will see an increase in tax revenues because wages are taxable and health benefits are not. The CBO, however, did not estimate which taxpayers might wind up paying more in taxes because of such coverage changes.
There will be other direct tax implications for individual taxpayers, including some middle-income taxpayers, such as limits on health care spending accounts that increase tax revenue. (A full list of the tax provisions can be found on the IRS website.)
Johnson also has made the point before that the “Obamacare taxes” will indirectly affect all taxpayers. In a response to the president’s State of the Union address, Johnson said: “The trillion dollars of Obamacare taxes have just kicked in. They will hit every man, woman, and child in America — either directly through taxes on your health care plan, or indirectly, through higher prices for health care in general.”