{"id":509,"date":"2012-07-11T09:53:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-11T09:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/house-members-seek-to-repeal-administrations-religious-freedom-tax\/"},"modified":"2012-07-11T09:53:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-11T09:53:00","slug":"house-members-seek-to-repeal-administrations-religious-freedom-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2012\/07\/house-members-seek-to-repeal-administrations-religious-freedom-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"House members seek to repeal administration’s ‘Religious Freedom Tax’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Washington D.C., Jul 11, 2012 \/ 03:53 am (CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- Two U.S. representatives have introduced a bill to stop the federal government from taxing religious employers that decline to cover contraception and abortion-causing drugs in their health plans.<\/p>\n

\tThe legislation will protect religious groups, as well as private businesses with \u201cmoral and religious objections,\u201d from being heavily taxed for refusing to pay for insurance \u201cthat violates their religious or moral views,\u201d Representative James Sensenbrennner (R-Wis.) said on July 10.<\/p>\n

\tRep. Sensenbrenner is joined by Representative Diane Black (R-Tenn.) in sponsoring the \u201cReligious Freedom Tax Repeal Act.\u201d The \u201ctax\u201d it would repeal is part of the federal health care reform law, whose regulatory fines were upheld in the June 28 Supreme Court decision that cast them as a form of taxation.<\/p>\n

\tAt Tuesday's press conference, they explained that the law known as \u201cObamacare\u201d would allow the Internal Revenue Service to collect $100 per day for each employee of an organization that fails to cover services such as contraception and sterilization without a co-pay.<\/p>\n

\tThe tax penalty is part of the Health and Human Services contraception mandate, currently being challenged by over 50 organizations in 23 lawsuits.<\/p>\n

\tSensenbrenner described the tax as \u201csevere\u201d and \u201cconfiscatory.\u201d A religious institution with 50 employees, he calculated, would be forced to pay nearly $2 million in taxes each year for refusing to provide contraception.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cIf these taxes are levied, and they are enforced, there will be no religious-affiliated institutions left in this country,\u201d the Wisconsin congressman warned.<\/p>\n

\tThese institutions play a vital role in the nation's life, he said, and should not be \u201ctaxed out of business\u201d for following their moral convictions.<\/p>\n

\tRep. Black told reporters she was co-sponsoring the bill because of her belief \u201cthat freedom of religion is an inalienable gift from our creator, and not a revocable privilege from our government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThe U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision on Obamacare leaves intact a serious assault on our religious freedom,\u201d the Tennessee congresswoman said, referring to the HHS mandate and the tax penalties associated with it.<\/p>\n

\tShe explained that the Religious Freedom Tax Repeal Act would give religious groups, and other morally-opposed employers, relief from the \u201cimpossible choice\u201d they could otherwise face \u2013 between following their principles, and paying a \u201cdevastating tax\u201d likely to prove unaffordable for many.<\/p>\n

\tThe text of the act would \u201cexempt employers from any excise tax and certain suits and penalties in the case of a failure of a group health plan to provide coverage to which an employer objects on the basis of religious belief or moral conviction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

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