Just as the first round of PPACA provisions become effective on September 23, 2010 (e.g., elimination of lifetime caps on health benefits, requiring health plans to permit adult children to remain on their parents’ plans until age 26), HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner have asked Congress to “scale back” the 1099 tax reporting obligation in the new law. That change, if included in amendments to the small business bill now being considered by the Senate, would relieve some businesses of the administrative burden of issuing 1099s to vendors from whom they purchase more than $600 in goods and services in a single year. Think of those numerous trips to Office Max or the local deli which caters your business lunches.
Is this merely a technical fix to one of the many provisions in PPACA that legislators didn’t fully understand last March or is it a sign of things to come? The Wall Street Journal’s editorial on September 14, 2010, “The 1099 Insurrection” sees the 1099 revision as part of something much bigger. “The larger political story is that ObamaCare is already under bipartisan seige- and in the same Congress that passed it. The 1009 provision is only one plank, but repealing the law plank by plank may be the right strategy. Sooner or later the whole thing becomes unworkable.”
It’s way too soon to know what will eventually come of PPACA, but it stands to reason that no law of this magnitude has ever been implemented without some revision. Reform is never a singular act, but rather a process that must be organic if it is to attain its desired objectives.
