• Komodo Rodeo@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    I’ll be damned, it was almost addressed by legislation in a similar way as car insurance then, if I’m understanding the broad strokes (penalty for non possession)? That being the case, was the penalty via taxes not routed in much the same way as simply paying taxes overall, except only as a means to cover some of the cost for those least able to afford it?

    People are generally pissed about paying sales taxes which achieve much the same outcome minus the carrot-stick approach and penalties, how much more or less pissed were Americans about getting ‘nudged’ in the right direction with income tax penalties by comparison?

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I’m not sure about the routing

      It’s hard to tell how pissed off people were about the tax penalty trying to nudge them in the right direction.

      • Clearly some people think they never need medical care, or that they can make that decision in the short term to save some much needed money. Statistics show they are very wrong, but everyone thinks they’re above average.
      • Clearly some people were vocal about complaining
      • but also very clearly a lot of it was partisanship, politicians stoking outrage to manipulate voters

      I honestly don’t know how common it really was for people to be upset vs how common it was political shenanigans. As always, those shenanigans misrepresent and confuse the truth, so were those complainers even aware of what they’re complaining?

      • Komodo Rodeo@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        It’s hard to tell how pissed off people were about the tax penalty trying to nudge them in the right direction.

        • but also very clearly a lot of it was partisanship, politicians stoking outrage to manipulate voters

        Ah, par for the course then. There’s a lot of that going around on a pretty regular basis unfortunately.