Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 02:35 am
Michele Bachmann turned up on Piers Morgan Tonight touting a 3.8% ObamaCare tax on home sales. The problem is that this is a total lie based on a chain email.
On CNN Bachmann said, “In fact, what a lot of Americans aren’t realizing quite yet is that there’s over twenty new taxes in ObamaCare and just one of the taxes will be a tax when people sell their homes. It’s 3.8%, and for many Americans they’ll have to pay in addition to all the other costs at the closing when they sell their home, the seller will have to pay 3.8% of the closing cost to the government for ObamaCare. So if you have a $500,000 house, you’ll be having to give something under $20,000 to the federal government for ObamaCare. That’s just one of the new taxes about to take place.”
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There are a few clues in Michele Bachmann’s comments above that suggest that her statements aren’t true. First, Bachmann says, “many Americans,” but she doesn’t specify exactly how many. The second big clue is that Bachmann said used the example of a $500,000 home. Bachmann’s choice of a half a million dollar home as her example was especially curious when you consider that according to the Census, the median sell price for an American home is $216,800, and the average sale price is $272,900.
It turns out that Michele Bachmann was lying. There is no ObamaCare home tax, but this is a Republican lie that just won’t die.
The Tax Policy Center has tried repeatedly to debunk it. Last year Forbes debunked this lie by writing, “Yes, the health law will impose a 3.8 percent tax on investment profits and other non-wage income starting in 2013. But that tax applies only to couples with adjusted gross income of $250,000 (or individuals with AGI of $200,000). About 95 percent of households make less than that, and will be exempt from the law no matter what. In addition, couples who sell a personal residence can exclude the first $500,000 in profit from tax ($250,000 for singles). That would be profit from a home sale, not proceeds. So a couple that bought a house for $100,000 and sold it for $599,000 would owe no tax, even under the health law. If that couple had AGI in excess of $250,000 and made a profit of $500,010, it would owe the new tax. On ten bucks. That would be an extra 38 cents.”
It turns out that Bachmann and her GOP colleagues floating this pile of dung got their info from a chain email. Yes, the spam that annoying people send you all the time is where Bachmann got her information about the ObamaCare home sales tax.
PolitiFact took on this email back in 2010 and deemed it a pants on fire lie.
The email itself stated that, “Under the new health care bill — did you know that all real estate transactions will be subject to a 3.8% Sales Tax? The bulk of these new taxes don’t kick in until 2013 (presumably after Obama’s re-election). You can thank Nancy, Harry and Barack and your local Democrat Congressman for this one. If you sell your $400,000 home, there will be a $15,200 tax. This bill is set to screw the retiring generation who often downsize their homes. Is this Hope & Change great or what? Does this stuff makes (sic) your November and 2012 votes more important?”
As you can see all Bachmann did was change the numbers from a $400,000 home to a $500,000 home and the amount of the tax from $15,000 to $20,000.
The truth is that there is no 3.8% tax on home sales to pay for ObamaCare. It is all a big lie, a big fat two year old lie. This is a mark of how desperate the Republican Party is to stop healthcare reform. They have taken a chain email and elevated it to a talking point. The truth is that only 0.2% of home sellers would be subject to the tax, and the amount they would pay would be $235 not $20,000.
At least now we know why Michele Bachmann is so misinformed about everything. She gets her information from the same source where most Americans get work at home offers and Viagra ads. Bachmann is probably waiting for that nice Nigerian prince to deliver the millions that she inherited.
Yes America, voters have elected this woman to the United States House of Representatives multiple times.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
