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By Knight Kiplinger

The Kiplinger Washington Editors

July 2, 2009

By year-end or so, Congress will give the nod to a major rewriting of the nation's financial regulatory system. This week’s Kiplinger Letter explores whether the package will do more harm than good and what lawmakers are likely to include.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: The Economy, Business Costs, Taxes, Supreme Court, Energy, Workplace Regulations, Climate Change, Health Care Legislation and Foreign Policy

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I just attended a franchise seminar. The speaker represents a few hundred franchises that (he says) are hand picked. He has the prospect (aka victim?) answer some questions about themselves then he makes recomendations - based on your personality, capital situation, etc.. If you pick a franchise, then he does some due dilligence for you. If you both decide it's a good idea, he helps you get started. He says he offers this service free of charge, which means he gets a commission if he's able to sell you a franchise. Has anyone done this? Successfully? Unsuccessfully?

-- fender

Who Gets Tax Breaks for Health Care?

Health reform plans often call for changing tax treatment of health insurance. But there's little talk about who gets helped and who gets hurt.

Worth Reading: The Quick Take from Kiplinger

July 2008

Kaiser Family Foundation

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation is a nonprofit foundation that develops and conducts its own research and communications programs, often in partnership with outside organizations. It is one of the nation's largest private foundations devoted to health and health care issues. The foundation is not associated with Kaiser Permanente or Kaiser Industries.

Quick, how much did federal tax breaks save you and your employees on health insurance last year? No idea? Join the club. One reason that most of us get our health insurance through our jobs is that employers get a tax break for offering it and we get the benefit tax free. But because the benefit just flows to us, most of us have no idea that our benefit is actually being subsidized by the government -- so we have no idea how much of an impact that tax break has on us or others.

That might not matter much most of the time, but many plans for reforming the health insurance system are taking aim at that tax break so the money it consumes can be used in a different way in the health system. Given such a radical change, the Kaiser Family Foundation decided to look at the tax treatment of the benefit and the way it affects buyers at different income levels.

"Because workers pay different percentages of their income for taxes, the current tax treatment of health insurance premiums and the proposals to change it can have a different impact for workers depending on their income and their family circumstances," the foundation says. And generally that means that higher-income people receive greater support from the tax system than lower-income people do. "Although the system is complicated, understanding how tax subsidies are distributed under current law is a necessary first step to understanding how the system may be improved," the analysis recommends.

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