Real Estate Tax in the Health Care Bill | Video

Jessica Roose | 7/13/2012

We`ve talked a lot about the President`s health care law and how it could affect North Dakotans when it takes full effect. But starting in 2013, it could effect more than healthcare. Just hours before the historic legislation was passed back in 2010, a tax on real estate was added to the bill.

It`s a complicated tax, but starting January 1, you could have to pay an extra 3.8 percent sales tax during the sale of your home.

"You`ve got to have an income of $200,000 as an individual and $250,000 joint or greater to affect you," said Century 21 agent Ron Volk.

That income includes your adjusted gross income plus any taxable gain that is made on the sale of the property. Volk says most property sales in North Dakota do not make a quarter of a million dollar profit and for that reason does not think it will affect most people.

But he is concerned with how the tax was passed by Congress.

"If I voted against, lets say, the Obamacare health bill and voted against it, then someone`s going to say, well you`re voting against this tax hike. If I vote for it then I`m voting for the tax hike. I didn`t even know it was in there, I was voting on the healthcare bill. So there`s a ton of them that were tied up in this and that`s lack of transparency."

Which is why Republican U.S. House candidate Kevin Cramer says is another reason the bill needs to be repealed.

"With something as big and important as healthcare reform it should not be littered with all of these extra things that are designed to increase taxes on people and have an even further detriment to our economy. Further than the Obamacare mandate it`s self."

His Democratic opponent Pam Gulleson does not believe the law should be repealed and added in a statement that she does not support this provision, and tacking it onto a bill that was completely unrelated was the wrong move.

Any revenue collected from the tax would go to the Medicare hospital insurance fund.

For more information about the tax as well as examples as to how the it could affect different situations visit http://www.realtor.org/small_business_health_coverage.nsf.

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