False Report!

[scrutch]

^^  Ding!  Ding!  And there's your answer!  ^^

 

C'mon folks, y'all are smarter than to fall victim to random emails and Facebook posts making highly emotional claims.  The email is completely false.  A myth.  Fiction.  Made up.  A fairy tale. An April's Fools joke.  A prank.  A hoax.

 

Geez.

UHHHH, so you're saying it isn't real?

[Lund Explorer]

Thank you! The gullibility of some people never ceases to amaze me.

 

Tom

 

It's more than just gullibility, and sadly there is a real easy cure that way too many people refuse to use.  It sits between our ears and right behind our eyes, and with a little effort, darn near everyone can learn to use it.  Here's my politically neutral view on the subject.

 

We start with someone with an ax to grind against the other party.  They take a grain of truth (yes, there is a medical device tax), add a few outright falsehoods to it, and release it as "News" on an internet blog.  The story is read by someone who has a pre-conceived view of how bad government is, and that person needs to share this latest outrage with everyone via email in there address book.  Repeat this a few times, and now millions are being bombarded by trusted friends with second, third, or fourth hand fact. 

 

I've seen it before.  If you've been around the internet and used emails back 10-15 years ago, maybe you have seen it too.  Someone would email a joke that had been forwarded a half-dozen times, and if you wanted to print it out that one page joke it took thirty pages to do so with the thousands of email addresses attached to it.

 

Fortunately the cure is common sense and the ability of almost everyone to use the internet's various search engines.  Had the original person who read this (and that doesn't mean Sam) had taken the time to think about it, the whole concept doesn't make any sense.  Had they done a quick search with terms like "Medical Device Tax", or "Tax on Fishing Poles" they may just have found out the truth.

 

What is the truth?

 

There IS an excise tax on certain medical devices.  If anyone had read down into the second page of the linked IRS publication, they would have seen that it shows up under What's New.  It even states that the tax comes about from the Affordable Care Act.  Reading the ACA would show that the tax is assessed on certain medical devices, and explains what the revenues are used for.  There ARE a number of other excise taxes listed on that publication, and a little research would show why each one of them was created, and where the revenue from them goes. 

 

The simple fact is that if the government is tasked with spending money to create or maintain something, it requires revenue to meet those expenses.  In my opinion, there isn't a fairer way to fund such things than with an Excise Tax, or more commonly called a Use Tax.  Now, if someone could care less if wildlife had someplace to roam, or fish somewhere to swim, then they probably aren't buying the things that generate the revenue to cover those things.  If you don't fly, then you aren't paying the excise tax on aircraft fuel.  And, if you don't need a pace maker, then you aren't paying the medical device tax.  One last thing.  the only way any of these taxes are hidden, is because someone doesn't want to take the effort to look for it.

[dam0007]

In a word, yup.

smh lol idiots