Maximilian Held (J.D. 2011, Gonzaga), Note, Go Forth and Sin [Tax] No More: Important Tax Provisions, and Their Hazards, in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 46 Gonz. L. Rev. 717 (2011):

No tax law article would be complete without a reference to Benjamin Franklin’s vexatiously cited quote regarding the certainty of death and taxes. Had this great Founding Father lived to modern times, perhaps he would list sin, and the taxation thereof, among the hopelessly inevitable. Social engineering by way of taxation is certainly nothing new. Taxes have long been imposed against activities deemed to conflict with certain governmental interests. Deductions, meanwhile, serve to encourage government-favored conduct. While requiring slovenly people to pay more taxes than the virtuous is superficially alluring, it can dangerously interfere with taxation’s revenue-raising purpose. The recent gargantuan healthcare overhaul5 arguably represents the nadir of such sin taxes, albeit a highly unconventional example, replete with provisions calculated to penalize poor choices. The tax laws therein are not only intrusive (and possibly unconstitutional), they are extremely expensive to enforce. The purpose of this article is to tersely showcase some of the legislation’s most significant tax provisions and the constitutional and political controversy surrounding each. This article argues that even if these provisions pass constitutional muster, their impracticality, inefficiency, and potential for abuse illustrate the difficulties in the taxation-based engineering of society. Finally, this article suggests that litigation surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) may ultimately provide much needed guidance concerning the limits, if any, of Congress’s taxation power.

Before the tax provisions contained in the new healthcare legislation can be properly dissected, it is necessary to first provide some insight regarding the details of its enactment as well as an overview of some of the laws therein that do not involve taxes. Furthermore, understanding the debate surrounding the constitutionality of the new legislation’s tax measures demands a brief synopsis of the federal government’s tax power itself.