It is and it isn't or it was before it wasn't....

polifrog




Washington Examiner:

On the first day of oral arguments in the case challenging President Obama's national health care law, justices seemed skeptical that the individual mandate should be considered a tax -- one of the main consitutional defenses being offered for the law.

...

"This is not a revenue-raising measure, because, if it's successful, they won't -- nobody will pay the penalty and there will be no revenue to raise," said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the mandate.

Another liberal on the court, Justice Stephen Breyer, said of Congress's description of the fine for non-compliance with the mandate, "They called it a penalty and not a tax for a reason."

...

The Obama administration has to thread a difficult needle. U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli argued today that the penalty for non-compliance with the mandate did not function as a tax for the purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act. Tomorrow, he'll have to argue that it does operate as a tax, and thus is a constitutional exercise of the congressional power to levy taxes.

Justice Samuel Alito asked Verrilli whether he could point to another case in which courts identified something as not a tax for the purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act while still ruling it was a constitutional exercise of taxing power. Verrilli could not name any. But he went on to explain that the government had identified a number of penalties that would fall into the same category, including three that concern alcohol and tobacco.

h/t Bubba





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