[quote=FlyerInHi] . . . BG, I don’t really want to make this personal, but you gave your dad’s example… so please be specific.
You say that your dad was successful and ran a medium size business. I would consider medium to be over $10 million in revenue in today’s dollar. He should have made a least $500,000 profit annually, in addition to his own executive salary, and left you kids with an inheritance, or gifted you a house in Lake Tahoe were you want to retire. 40 years ago, houses were cheap. What happened to the money?
I run a small business myself and the only “bullshit” thing that I deal with is the County Department of Environmental Health. We need to have a safety plan in case of fire, hazardous material spill, etc… It’s kinda of a pain, but I understand why employees should be trained for what to do in case of accident.
Workers comp is expensive, but that’s due to health care costs growing faster than inflation. Compliance is simple. The payroll service/software does the computation work.
I get my health coverage through my other work; but small business wise, Obamacare is great because our employees can now buy coverage through the exchange, and have their premiums reimbursed tax-free through payroll deduction. If there’re good profits, the employer can be more generous and pay the employees a bonus.
IRS wise, I don’t see what is onerous. The rules are what they are. Just follow them. Give me and example of something corrupt.
What is corrupt is BIG businesses being able to shift profits offshore to not pay taxes at all.[/quote]FIH, my dad’s biz is still running as a “scaled down version” of its former self. He had about 27 “employees” (a few were “independent contractors”) before he passed. Perhaps that size was technically a “small business” and not a medium-sized business.
I only stated that my dad wasn’t too happy with some IRS rules and policies. He did not deal with the IRS directly. He had a CPA who handled this stuff for the biz. I did state that he complained about his state taxing agency as being “corrupt.” He wasn’t referring to income taxes.
All your numbers are way off, FIH. And my dad has never been to Lake Tahoe, much less owned property there, lol …
My dad’s biz was much different than what you do as his biz operated in 7 states (only 3 now). Suffice to say, he was in the transportation business and subject to hundreds of regulations, some of which were different for each state. You don’t have to deal with the CA FTB in NV with its quarterly reporting requirements to EDD and thorny UI issues. Nor do you have to fight with CA cities and as a byproduct, their NIMBYs about signage and setback or have to keep active a “business license” for every single sub-biz you are presumably conducting. I know several people who just have a little “side gig” from home and ended up having to apply for a business license for it, even though they just work intermittently or occasionally.
CA isn’t that business friendly. Even CA utility providers double the cost of elec, gas, telephone and trash pickup to a business as opposed to a residence which is larger in square feet.
Obamacare is fine for the under-55-years of-age W-2 wage earner who has little or no tax write-offs and thus takes the standard deduction. That is the only type of “situation” that CC workers (who make little more than min wage) understand when they do manual “tax-return reviews.” If the CC customer is at least 55 years old and their income is derived mostly from passive sources such as pensions, annuities, retirement accounts, et al, and they have legal writeoffs for a good chunk of it, then the CC personnel do not have the “expertise” to cull these tax returns. This “boomer” group of CC customers is required to “prove” the sources of their income to CC at 1-2 times per year and at times on short notice. I am currently compiling what will be a mountain of evidence that CC has been chiefly targeting nearly ALL of their customers over age 55 (who are receiving a subsidy to help them with their exorbitant premiums and are ALSO real property owners in any of CA’s 58 counties) for forced termination of their healthplans followed by forced Medi-Cal placement. If the customer does not comply with the exercise of “proving their income” to CC by their arbitrary deadlines, their healthplan will be terminated behind their back, their CC account will be frozen (so the customer can’t access it online) and their electronic file will be forwarded to their County Dept of Human Services (who share the CALHEERS data with CC) for forced Medi-Cal placement for the purposes of “Estate Recovery.” Yes, this has already happened to thousands of CC customers over the age of 55 all over the state.
I have reliable information that the CA AG’s office is currently being “beefed up” for a massive collection effort to lien boomers’ homes and aggressively pursue MC-recipient’s decedent estates for monthly Medi-Cal “managed care fees” incurred beginning at the earliest the month they turn 55 until the day they turn 65. In SD County, these fees are currently about $617 mo plus a $10-$15 “administrative fee.” You do the math … but be sure to increase the fees at least 6% per year for every year. It doesn’t matter whether the customer even ever used healthcare … or not! They will be forced to “repay” their Medi-Cal “premiums” through the forced lien on their homes (or any other real property they own in any CA county), which will be collected upon their deaths if no surviving spouse is still residing in the home and if so, after the surviving spouse dies or moves out permanently. Once CC sends a customers account to their County Human Services Agency, that agency has to “release” the customer back to CC before they will be allowed to (re)purchase a marketplace plan. This procedure takes anywhere from four months to one year in CA, even if their account was transferred to Medi-Cal in error (most of them so far have been).
These actions by CC are overtly discriminatory and may very well be unconstitutional. However the Estate Recovery provisions are written into the ACA and CA law.
In past practice, Medi-Cal only placed liens for “long-term care” they paid for. It did not have very many customers who actually had assets unless they availed themselves of long-term care (usually over the age of 65 and while on Medicare). But with the advent of the ACA, the “asset test” has been removed for MC applicants residing in the in the states which agreed to “Expanded Medicaid,” such as CA. We boomers are a “cash cow” for the state and they want as many of us real property owners as possible on Medi-Cal as soon as possible so our tab will begin running on monthly “MC managed care fees.” To this effort, CC has been repeatedly flooding us with threatening letters (deadlines keep changing) demanding we manually download documents to their site to prove our incomes to them. ALL of the seven individuals over 55 whom I have assisted so far in “proving” their incomes to CC in response to letters they received (I have a scanner and office set up to do so) made $10-$20K OVER the MC threshold last year but were nonetheless told they must prove their incomes, anyway every single year (even if on a fixed income). In addition, they ALL authorized CC to review their tax return numbers for at least 3 tax years hence.
There is a whole lot more to this sad saga which I’ll start a separate thread on at a later date. The reality is that Obamacare was a big lie and is a farce. Covered CA is very, very poorly run, is a deep hole where nothing ever gets resolved and is a joke … the laughingstock of the state. Billions, perhaps trillions have been utterly wasted on “implementing” the ACA and it is nothing more than a power play by the gubment to gain control over the populace by creating a “requirement” (force people to buy a certain kind of health policy) and then making it impossible for them to fulfill that requirement without constantly jumping through hoops the gubment sets up which means opening up all their finances to them. There are millions out there like me who were happy paying our $358 month for an HDHP from a reputable carrier. Two years later, that $358 month has mushroomed into $1168 month for an “ACA-compliant” policy from a mediocre carrier with much less choice, which I can’t pay every month (nor can a LOT of people) without my lousy $390 subsidy. Even then, I had to bump my coverage down a metal level for 2016 to afford it. All the BS I had and have to go thru with CC and having lost my coverage twice (after paying my premium) for a total of 41 days in 2015 due to CC’s f-ups makes having an exchange plan not worth it to me anymore. I thought I was going to get to sign up for insurance, set my premiums to be paid automatically and forget it until it was time to renew and that renewing would be a simple mouse click and was I ever wrong! As a road traveler, I didn’t know I was going to have to worry constantly if my healthplan membership card is any good and am I actually covered right now? I’ve recently learned that the non-exchange plans aren’t marked up as much (the CC carriers pay CC $14 month for each customer), have more creative provisions in them and have more (even much more) choice of providers.
FIH, I’m happy that you’re happy with the status quo in this country but I see several issues which are dragging it down and absolutely perilous for the boomer generation. My advice to you is to stay far, far away from an exchange plan after you turn 55 and buy a plan on your own. (That’s what I intend to do this fall – I already have 2 plans picked out for 2017, which are NOT with exchange carriers.) More power to the candidate who is able to get elected and address this huge debacle and other pressing issues!
