[quote=Aecetia]”The Supreme Court upheld most of President Obama’s Health Care law, including the controversial individual mandate that nearly all Americans obtain health insurance or be subject to a fine. The court said that fine ultimately amounts to a tax, and therefore the government does have the power to impose it.”
“The Anti-Injunction Act applies to suits ‘for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax.’… Congress, however, chose to describe the ‘[s]hared responsibility payment’ imposed on those who forgo health insurance not as a ‘tax,’ but as a ‘penalty.’ …There is no immediate reason to think that a statute applying to ‘any tax’ would apply to a ‘penalty.’”
Congress’s decision to label this exaction a ‘penalty’ rather than a ‘tax’ is significant because the Affordable Care Act describes many other exactions it creates as ‘taxes.’”
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The Affordable Care Act does not require that the penalty for failing to comply with the individual mandate be treated as a tax for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act. The Anti-Injunction Act therefore does not apply to this suit, and we may proceed to the merits.”
The court applied two different tests to determine whether the penalty is a tax under two different powers. It is not a tax for the purposes of the Anti-Injunction act, and is a tax under the taxing powers of congress.
In the same ruling, it was judged to be both a tax and not a tax.
