The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is supposed to provide health insurance subsidy tax credits for about 20 million low-income and moderate-income Americans in 2014, but it also could impose a significant increase in federal income tax payments for some high-income Americans.
Here's a look at some of the major PPACA taxes and fees that are supposed to take effect in 2014.
- Health care industries. Insurers, drug companies and medical device manufacturers face new fees and taxes.
- The insurance industry faces an annual fee that starts at $8 billion in its first year, 2014.
- Companies that make medical equipment sold chiefly through doctors and hospitals, such as pacemakers, artificial hips and coronary stents, will pay a 2.3 percent excise tax on their sales, expected to total $1.7 billion in its first year, 2013. They're trying to get it repealed.
- Pharmaceutical companies that make or import brand-name drugs are already paying fees; they totaled $2.5 billion in 2011, the first year.
- Employer penalties. Starting in 2014, companies with 50 or more employees that do not offer coverage will face penalties if at least one of their employees receives government-subsidized coverage. The penalty is $2,000 per employee, but a company's first 30 workers don't count toward the total.
