From Newsmax:
Save Money on Obamacare — Get Divorced
It's being called Obamacare's "wedding tax."
Provisions of the healthcare reform bill discourage marriage — and
encourage divorce.
According to a report by PJ Media, married
couples can save thousands of dollars on healthcare premiums if they get
a divorce and continue to live together.
That's because Obamacare is designed to provide
healthcare benefits that are substantially more generous for
lower-income people, and the bill counts a married couple's income
jointly.
Using a calculator from the Kaiser Family
Foundation, PJ Media's Tom Blumer gave the example of a 60-year-old
married couple with no children in the household, with identical annual
incomes totaling $62,041. Obamacare premiums rise sharply when combined
earnings hit $62,041.
If they remain wed, their net premium next year
would be $16,382. But unmarried individuals can earn up to $45,960
before losing Obamacare's subsidies, so if the couple divorces and each
reports an income of $31,020.50, their combined net premium would be
$5,354. That's a savings of $11,028 next year.
Blumer also offers the example of a 40-year-old couple with two children and incomes of $70,000 and $23,000.
Their combined income is $93,000, and subsidies
disappear at $92,401 for married pairs with two children. Their combined
premium would be $11,547 next year.
But if they divorce and give custody of the
children to the lower-earning spouse, one spouse's premium would be
$3,857 and the other's would be $460, for a total of $4,317. That's a
savings of $7,230 next year.
Blumer observes: "Clearly, many couples who are
considering marriage, especially after several years of seeing formerly
married couples regress to cohabiting, will look at Obamacare's 'wedding
tax' and say, 'never mind.'
"The effect on society will be incalculable, and certainly not for the good."
However, the law in many states says a couple cannot cohabit indefinitely and still claim not to be married.
The IRS could find those couples who are claiming
they are not wed for healthcare subsidy purposes, leading to this
scenario, according to Blumer: "Those caught and punished by the IRS
carrying out its new role as the de facto 'marriage police' could get
hit with multi-year bills for undeserved 'tax credits' running into tens
of thousands of dollars."
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