Chain e-mail about tax on health benefits is not true

[YewNork]

So, I receive a chain e-mail that my cousin sent to me and about 50 other friends and family members warning everyone that starting in 2011 the value of their employer provided health insurance will be
listed on their W-2 tax forms AND that they'll be expected to pay income tax on that amount. The e-mail then goes on to reference an article by Joan Pryde,
senior tax editor for Kiplingers, where they can read about this tax change.

The e-mail conveniently leaves out any link to the Kiplinger article, which can be found at:

http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/forecast/archive/health-care-reform-tax-hikes-on-the-way.html

The article lists a number of tax changes including the following:

A requirement that businesses include the value of the health care benefits they provide to employees on W-2s,
beginning with W-2s for 2011. The amount reported is not considered taxable income.

I replied to my cousin that if he had bothered to check the Kiplinger article, he would see that it actually disproves what his e-mail was claiming,
and that the amount listed will not be taxed.

When I asked him if he was going to send out an e-mail retracting his original message to all the people to whom he sent the original message,
he said "no", because the people who were interested would check out the Kiplinger article themselves, and besides Obama probably does plan on
taxing those benefits some day, because he wants to tax everyone and so he has to be stopped at any cost

In other words, even though my cousin knows that what he said about the tax on health benefits is not true, he won't send out a message telling people that.

[LiberalFighter]

1. I received those type of emails from others and I documented the facts with the OP

After a couple of times with the sender I just did a reply to all. THAT resulted in further emails to stop. At least to me and most likely to others too or at least the others probably ignored him. Providing documentation proving the email is false to everyone that received from that person is the best method. IMO

It makes them look stupid and they will imo avoid that as much as possible in the future.

[YewNork]

3. Don't bother them with details, like the truth.

Yeah, I ultimately did a reply all and politely pointed out that the Kiplinger article actually says that the benefits reported on the
W-2s will not be considered taxable income. It generated a few replies like:

"You mean it won't be taxable now, but it will be in a few years."
"If it's not taxable then why include it on our W2s"
"It doesn't matter. This socialist must be stopped."
"Good luck with that type of thinking."

[LiberalFighter]

4. Just tell them that if they don't want their health care coverage taxed

to reduce their coverage.

[Bitwit1234]

2. And the republicans saying that Health Care especially

fior Medicare patients will be rationed is absolutely false. But still they spew their lies and hate.

[groberts]

5. Looks like the foot in the door to me...

I can't think of one valid reason that the Federal Government would want to know unless they were going to tax benefits at a later date.

If we want better government, we must require policymakers to prove that a policy innovation is innocuous - we should never allow them to put the onus on us to prove that something will be harmful.

Where is the concern for privacy here?

A great historical example of unintended consequences is the way in which our Social Security numbers have been abused. Americans were told that their Social Security # would never be used for anything but collection of benefits. Nobody could prove that in the future, we would be required to divulge our Soc.# to our University, our financial institutions etc. The privacy advocates were right!

We should expect more of our elected officials.

[Zoroastor]

6. One has to wonder...

...if these things start when idiots hear Beck or Bill "Doctor Killer" O'Reilly saying it, or, like the fake census forms are they originating from a legitimate source like CATO or GOP itself.