Sen. Daines: We Need to Repeal, Refund Obamacare Poverty Tax

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 -- The office of Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., issued the following news release:

U.S. Senator Steve Daines today introduced legislation, the Repeal and Refund Act, to retroactively repeal the individual mandate and refund everyone who has paid it.

Obamacare imposes a tax penalty on Americans who don't buy insurance and in 2014 and 2015 alone, they collected over $5 billion dollars in fines. Billions more were collected in 2016. In 2015, nearly 30,000 Montanans had to pay the IRS $14,341,000 for choosing not to purchase Obamacare, an average tax of $487 per household. 75 percent of Montana households who pay this tax make less than $50,000 per year.

"Families that can't afford health insurance because of Obamacare were forced to pay a costly fine that only added insult to injury," Daines stated. "This individual mandate, this poverty tax is immoral and it's a tax on our freedom which needs to be repealed immediately. The poverty tax must be paid back to the hardworking folks who paid them."

The amount of tax penalties paid by Americans making less than 50,000 nearly doubled, from $973 million in 2014 to $1.8 billion in 2015. This increased tax burden was due to the fact that the base tax penalty increased from $95 in 2014 to $325 in 2015.

Combining 2014 and 2015, Obamacare's Poverty Tax has been paid 14.6 million times and has taken nearly $5 billion out of the pockets of Americans. Further, 42% of penalty payers have made less than $25,000 and 82% of penalty payers made less than $50,000.

The Joint Committee on Taxation has confirmed that it will send nearly $5 billion back to the American people. Most of this relief will go to individuals making less than $50,000 a year.

Daines took to the Senate floor to blast the poverty tax and shared just a few stories of the 34,250 Montanans who paid the poverty tax in 2014. Montanans paid nearly $7.8 million dollars to the IRS - 40 percent Montanans who paid Obamacare's poverty tax made less than $25,000 and 80 percent made less than 50,000.

The text of Daines' bill can be found HERE (https://us5.proxysite.com/process.php?d=x5B99FmPCRZWhsLRUESdncFINm8FxGx9uIqzzz2FsP2nEyqwZ38%2FVX5V%2FxH5&b=1).