{"id":11776,"date":"2014-03-23T11:31:17","date_gmt":"2014-03-23T18:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=11776"},"modified":"2014-03-23T11:31:17","modified_gmt":"2014-03-23T18:31:17","slug":"idiot-tax-breitbarts-bonehead-defense-of-matt-drudges-liberty-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=11776","title":{"rendered":"IDIOT TAX: Breitbart’s Bonehead Defense Of Matt Drudge’s ‘Liberty Tax’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone familiar with Breitbart News will not be surprised to learn that they did something stupid, again. After all, they are the geniuses who think that “E Pluribus Unum”<\/em> is English<\/a>. But their latest inanity stretches the boundary of blockheadedness even for them.<\/p>\n

\"Drudge<\/p>\n

Be Sure To \u201cLIKE\u201d News Corpse On Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

The story began when conservative muckraker Matt Drudge boasted on Twitter<\/a> that he had just paid what he called his “Liberty Tax,”<\/em> a reference to the penalty for not getting health care coverage. The problem is that this fee is not payable until his 2014 taxes are due in 2015. Subsequently, Drudge was chastised by more knowledgeable people (e.g. almost anyone) who wondered whether he was deliberately lying or just ignorant.<\/p>\n

Coming to Drudge’s defense is Matthew Boyle of Breitbart News. Boyle proceeds to back up Drudge by accusing his critics of not understanding how businesses pay taxes. So Boyle sets out to explain it to them and cites language from the IRS form for filing estimated taxes:<\/p>\n

[S]ince he is self-employed as the proprietor of The Drudge Report, he files as a small business. According to the IRS\u2019s website for self-employed individuals, they are required to pay taxes quarterly. […] So, when they file and pay those 2014 first quarter taxes, such individuals have to pay the Obamacare Individual Mandate tax if they opted to not have health insurance\u2014like Drudge just did. […] Additionally, the IRS form (1040-ES) for estimating quarterly taxes specifically recommends adding the mandate penalty to line 12 for ‘other taxes’ — to pay before the first quarterly deadline of April 15.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s true that some self-employed individuals are required to make quarterly estimated payments on their taxes. However, none of them are required to include the penalty for not getting health insurance until the following year. In fact, it says just that in the same paragraph that BreitBrat Boyle quoted only a portion of. Here is the whole paragraph<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“Health care coverage. When you file your 2014 tax return in 2015<\/strong>, you will need to either (1) indicate on your return that you and your family had health care coverage throughout 2014, (2) claim an exemption from the health care coverage requirement for some or all of 2014, or (3) make a payment if you do not have coverage or an exemption(s) for all 12 months of 2014. For examples on how this payment works, go to www.IRS.gov\/aca and click under the ‘Individuals & Families’ section. You may want to consider this when figuring your ‘Other taxes’ on Line 12 of the 2014 Estimated Tax Worksheet. For general information on these requirements, go to www.IRS.gov\/aca.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Furthermore, Boyle’s defense is based on Drudge’s assertion that he is filing as a business, not as an individual. But what both Boyle and Drudge neglect to mention is that the mandate for businesses with fewer than 100 employees (which certainly includes Drudge) to provide health insurance to their employees was delayed until 2016. So no matter how you slice, Drudge has no tax liability for the coverage mandate in 2014.<\/p>\n

So Drudge’s “Liberty Tax”<\/em> really turns out to be an “Idiot Tax,”<\/em> because he doesn’t actually owe it. If he did pay the penalty (which we don’t have any proof of) it’s his own ignorance of the law that is to blame, not ObamaCare. And Breitbart’s lame-brained attempt to rescue Drudge only proves that when dumb right-wingers do dumb things, other dumb right-wingers will jump at the chance to compound the dumbness. And dumbest of all is that Drudge is bragging about putting his health in jeopardy by not having insurance. He regards liberty as being at risk for devastating financial hardship that would ultimately fall to other Americans in the form of higher premiums and fees for services.<\/p>\n

AT&T and Verizon users: Stop funding the Tea Party.
\nSwitch to CREDO Mobile, the progressive cell phone company, today!<\/a><\/center> <\/p>\n

Further evidence of this cycle of stupidity is that Fox News featured this Breitbart story as the top headline on their lie-riddled Fox Nation<\/a> website. And round and round it goes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone familiar with Breitbart News will not be surprised to learn that they did something stupid, again. After all, they are the geniuses who think that “E Pluribus Unum” is English. But their latest inanity stretches the boundary of blockheadedness even for them. Be Sure To \u201cLIKE\u201d News Corpse On Facebook The story began when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"IDIOT TAX: Breitbart's Bonehead Defense Of Matt Drudge's 'Liberty Tax'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[982,349,1080],"class_list":["post-11776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-breitbart","tag-matt-drudge","tag-matthew-boyle"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/drudge-liberty-tax.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-33W","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1557,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1557","url_meta":{"origin":11776,"position":0},"title":"The Right’s Top 25 Journalists?","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/11\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Tunku Varadarajan, national affairs correspondent for The Daily Beast, has compiled a list of what he and 50 academics, politicians, and journalists, consider to be the top 25 right-wing journalists in America. The most enlightening thing we learn from this list has nothing to do with the ranking of wingnuts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1558,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1558","url_meta":{"origin":11776,"position":1},"title":"Is Andrew Breitbart A Nine Year Old Twit?","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/12\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"You really have to wonder how a someone like Andrew Breitbart is held with any sort of respect. Having graduated from the Matt Drudge Institute for Debasing Journalism, Breitbart went on to launch a collection of web sites that he likes to think are \"Big.\" This week the Daily Beast\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29831,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=29831","url_meta":{"origin":11776,"position":2},"title":"Alex Jones And Matt Drudge: The Most Bizarre Interview You Will Ever Imagine You Witnessed","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/8\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop, the InfoWars Interview. On Tuesday's episode of InfoWars (video below), host and the conspiracy theory's chief theoretical conspirator,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Alex Jones \/ Matt Drudge","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/jones-drudge.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/jones-drudge.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/jones-drudge.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1573,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1573","url_meta":{"origin":11776,"position":3},"title":"This Is How Stupid Andrew Breitbart Is","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/24\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The terminally choleric Andrew Breitbart is embroiled in a flame war with journalist Max Blumenthal. The online altercation was sparked by Breitbart's dishonest defense of ersatz pimp, James O'Keefe. Then it flared up at CPAC. Blumenthal valiantly, but vainly, attempted to get O'Keefe to sit still for an an interview.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12200,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=12200","url_meta":{"origin":11776,"position":4},"title":"Five Years Old And Acting Like It: Happy Birthday, Fox Nation","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/8\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The Fox News community website, Fox Nation, is celebrating their fifth birthday. That's five years of lies and propaganda in their signature juvenile style. Click here to see this ebook on Amazon. Like the Tea Party, Fox Nation is turning five and behaving very much like any other five year\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox Nation","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/FNvR-5years.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/FNvR-5years.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/FNvR-5years.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1232,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1232","url_meta":{"origin":11776,"position":5},"title":"The Fox Nation Launches A Dud","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/30\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This morning there was a disturbance in the Force. The Fox Nation debuted amidst fanfare and the gnashing of teeth at tea parties everywhere. However, reports of the Fox News secession movement appear to have been a little overblown (by me, mostly). The reality of the Fox Nation is significantly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Media"","block_context":{"text":"Big Media","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11776"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11785,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11776\/revisions\/11785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}