Deciphering The IRS Tax Code

Apparently, I need a copy of Form 1095-B so as to prove that I've had health insurance coverage for all of tax year 2015 and so as to avoid the ObamaCare fine. To date, I have not yet received any such form from my insurance carrier BlueCross Blue Shield. Some of my friends have received their Form 1095-B, but I have not.

So, I decided to look up the due date online. Here's what I found (bold font in red is my emphasis):

New Due Dates for Filing Forms 1095-B, 1094-B, 1095-C and 1094-C -- 29-DEC-2015

The due dates for the 2015 information reporting requirements under I.R.C. §§ 6055 and 6056, have been extended.

*The due date for furnishing the 2015 Form 1095-B, Health Coverage, was changed from January 31, 2016, to March 31, 2016; and

*The due date for filing with the Service the 2015 Form 1094-B, Transmittal of Health Coverage Information Returns, and the 2015 Form 1095-B, Health Coverage, was changed from February 29, 2016, to May 31, 2016. If filing electronically, the due date was changed from March 31, 2016, to June 30, 2016.

*The due date for furnishing the 2015 Form 1095-C, Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage, was changed from January 31, 2016, to March 31, 2016; and

*The due date for filing with the Service the 2015 Form 1094-C, Transmittal of Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage Information Returns, and the 2015 Form 1095-C, Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage, was changed from February 29, 2016, to May 31, 2016. If filing electronically, the due date was changed from March 31, 2016, to June 30, 2016.

As a result of these extensions, individuals might not receive a Form 1095-B or Form 1095-C by the time they file their 2015 tax returns. For further guidance, please see Notice 2016-04.
Page Last Reviewed or Updated: 30-Dec-2015

Wrap your mind around all that verbiage! Are the people who write the IRS tax code paid by the word?

 My due date for filing my 2015 tax return in April 15, 2016 — unless filing electronically (I do indeed file electronically), in which case the due date is June 30, 2016 a date well after my tax return is due.

Is this delay going to cost me more to file my tax return because my tax preparer will have to file an amended return?

Weekend Humor Break

(For politics, please scroll down. Active thread below)

Another frenetic week in the blogosphere during this bizarre election cycle, and I figure that it's time to step back and have a good laugh....

And for all you teachers or former teachers out there...

FEATURED QUESTION: The 2016 National Election

I cannot recall a more bizarre election cycle!

The traditional rules do not seem to apply.

According to Can Donald Trump be stopped?, a February 24, 2016 article in the Washington Post:

Update On Aylan Kurdi

(some background information in case you need a refresher)

From the Infidel Bloggers Alliance post entitled "The man whose child died while he was smuggling people to Europe, now on trial for his role in the child’s death":

And yet, this photograph became a reason 

to feel sorry for "Migrants"

From the Vlad Tepes blog:

Keystone Kops

(Follow-up to this blog post of February 18, 2016)

Mack Sennett Studios - Publicity still from 1914 film "In the Clutches of the Gang"

From FBI admits iPhone mistake that may have cost it San Bernardino evidence:

In the chaotic aftermath of the shootings in San Bernardino, California, in December, FBI investigators seeking to recover data from the iPhone of one of the shooters asked a technician in the California county to reset the phone's iCloud password....

Read the rest HERE.

It is now my understanding that the self-destruct passcode on that iPhone — the passcode which is leading to this conflict between the court and Apple — is not a passcode which Syed Farook employed but rather one put on that iPhone at the request of the FBI.

Did no IT specialist along the way issue a warning?

Did nobody say, "If this, then that"?

Quotation Of The Day: Anti-Obama Rant

Bocopro, wordsmith par excellence, posted this priceless rant to this thread last week:

What aggravates and disgusts me most about the illicit Obamanacy is that after
 
eroding American international influence,
 
destabilizing the once-robust American economy,
 
tainting the already polluted American political system,
 
utterly destroying American free enterprise,
 
adding millions of non-taxpaying foreigners to the American social benefits systems,
 
saddling every American citizen with a 6-figure component of the national debt,
 
further aggravating relations between the various American ethnic groups,
 
and accomplishing virtually NOTHING positive,
 
the alien fraud contaminating the American White House will one day leave the job as a millionaire and hit the lecture circuit with assurances of huge appearance and speaking fees, all while basking in the fame, the stipends, the health care, the Secret Service protection, and the emeritus status for which he by no means is eligible or has in any way earned.

The grinning, posturing, lying, hypocritical, racist popinjay will write slanted books, make controversial speeches, allow staged interviews, provide biased commentary, promote Islamic law and culture, and give disastrous advice while having streets, airports, buildings, schools, libraries, and programs named after him. Like a con-man who has stumbled upon the password to the Teamsters’ Retirement Fund account, he will live the good life at the expense of racial loyalists, white apologists, academic quixotics, and anti-American socialist merdistes.

When time comes for the US Mint to produce his coin, it should read “Africa Princeps” on the front in a ring around his grinning face and “Thanks, Suckers” on the back where he is mooning the viewer.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, we the peasants beyond the moat try to keep our heads above water and — wonder if the President elected in 2016 will be any different.

Weekend Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy String Quintet In C Major D.956, sometimes called the "Cello Quintet," by Franz Schubert (1797–1828):


Janine Jansen - violin, Boris Brovtsyn - violin, Amihai Grosz- viola, Torleif Thedéen - cello, Jens Peter Maintz - cello

Information about the above piece, Schubert's last chamber piece, composed during the last year of his life and not publicly performed until well after the composer's death.

FEATURED QUESTION: Technology (With Addendum)

Apple has challenged a court order requiring the corporation to access the data on the iPhone used by San Bernardino jihadist Syed Farook.

Apple has refused to comply with the court order. See Apple CEO Tim Cook's letter to customers.

Lame-Duck SCOTUS Appointments

The United States Supreme Court Building

Barack Hussein Obama (dated February 13, 2016):

I plan to fulfill my constitutional responsibilities to nominate a successor in due time.

As Obama declares that he will nominate a justice to the United States Supreme Court upon the passing the Justice Antonin Scalia, note that in August 1960, during a year of a National Election in which the President was not an incumbent, the Senate, controlled by the Democrats, passed Senate Resolution 334:

“Expressing the sense of the Senate that the president should not make recess appointments to the Supreme Court, except to prevent or end a breakdown in the administration of the Court’s business.” Each of President Eisenhower’s SCOTUS appointments had initially been a recess appointment who was later confirmed by the Senate, and the Democrats were apparently concerned that Ike would try to fill any last-minute vacancy that might arise with a recess appointment.

You see, by August 1960, President Eisenhower had already appointed five justices to the SCOTUS, and even though there was no vacancy on the bench, the Democrats were determined that President Eisenhower not appoint another justice.

Also recall this from the not-so-distant past: in 2007, Chuck Schumer called for blocking George W. Bush's SCOTUS appointments (hat tip to Bunkerville).

Forget about the past if you like, and now consider this, from a Washington Post article entitled "If Republicans block Obama’s Supreme Court nomination, he wins anyway":

...The court is not yet halfway through the 80 or 90 cases it deals with each term, but many of the most contentious have already been heard. Normally, justices meet the week a case is argued, and vote on the outcome. So they have most likely already voted on pending cases on apportionment and affirmative action, for example. But weeks or months can go by while the justice assigned the opinion circulates drafts. Any justice can change his or her vote at any point during that process, and often does. It’s all very hush-hush, so there is no way to tell how far along the cases Scalia heard are in the pipeline.

There is no constitutional provision, no case law and no official policy about what the court should do with cases that have been argued and voted on when a justice dies. If the vote in a case that hasn’t yet been handed down was 5 to 4, as one might expect with these controversial rulings, can Scalia cast the deciding vote from beyond the grave to change the way America chooses every legislature in the land or integrates its public universities?...

Of particular interest to Conservatives:

Even if the GOP blocks [Obama's] nominee, the policy outcomes would be very similar to what they’d be if the court had a liberal majority....

Read the entire Washington Post article HERE.

Controversial issues before the SCOTUS, now comprised of eight members, relate to abortion, immigration, and unions.

With the death of United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the 2016 National Election's stakes have soared — not only for the reasons above but also because the battle over a vacancy on the SCOTUS may spill over into the 2016 Senate races.

A Reminder From George Washington

Possibly apocryphal, but nevertheless worth considering:

Yesteryear

A different sort of Valentine's Day blog post:

Article HERE.

Saturday Wisdom — And Open Thread

If you choose to opine in this open thread, remember this (hat tip to FreeThinke for the graphic in this blog post):

A link to get this thread started:

Four months after being notified about high lead levels in a Flint home, the Environmental Protection Agency was prepared to let the city continue giving lead-contaminated water to customers until at least 2016, emails released Friday show.

So, what's on your mind?

Please opine on the topic of your choice according to the parameters below:

Recommended Reading

See Felony Charge for Selling a Wisconsin Beer In Minnesota: Americans, This is Where We Live at Reason.com.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton goes unindicted and is running for President of the United States.

As my good friend LA Sunset opined this morning at Z's site:

People are going to be charged with a felony for transporting Spotted Cow beer from Wisconsin and selling it in Minnesota. But somehow she [Hillary Rodham Clinton] is still roaming the earth in ugly pantsuits, after committing some of the most egregious crimes against the United States of America.

Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

Horrific Local Story

On Friday, February 5. 2016, Deonte Carraway, a volunteer aide at Judge Sylvania Woods Elementary School in Prince George's County, Maryland, was arrested on charges of manufacturing pornographic videos of children.  At least some of the videos were made on the school grounds during school hours.  Carraway has confessed to making the videos and faces ten felony counts.

There are at least 10 victims, ranging in age from 9 to 13. Police expect that there are more victims and are asking the public to check their children's social media platforms and cell phones.

The story doesn't end there.

Carraway also worked as a volunteer with children at an aquatic center, in a youth choir, and at a community center.

And the story doesn't end there, either.

We read this a few days later:

A lawsuit filed against Prince George’s County Public Schools claims that the predatory behavior of a volunteer aide, who is now facing child sex abuse and child pornography charges, was well known by students, teachers and parents and even reported to the school’s principal.

[...]

The suit says that other county school children also were sexually abused by Carraway, who coerced and pressured the students to engage in sex acts with the 22-year-old man on school property during the school day. Also, Carraway coerced the children into engaging in sexual acts with each other, according to the lawsuit.

He used locations such as the auditorium and bathrooms to film the acts on his cellphone. Videos found by police date back from early 2015 and continued until last week.

[...]

According to the suit, teachers expressed concerns about Carraway to Williams before Carraway began to abuse the 9-year-old boy....

The principal, whose salary range appears to be $98,500-$136,349, has now been placed on administrative leave, with salary and benefits intact while the investigation is ongoing. Educational malpractice pays.

What a world!

And why didn't Principal Michelle Williams follow protocol and contact the police when the first allegation was made — especially since the allegation was made against a volunteer aide?

The 2016 New Hampshire Primary

If you must discuss the results, this is thread to do so.


Please scroll down for other material (two blog posts today).

DHS Whistleblower

Something that has been rumbling below the radar as Americans have been focused on the 2016 National Election and Super Bowl 50:

DHS ordered me to scrub records of Muslims with terror ties by Philip Haney, who worked for the Department of Homeland Security for fifteen years (dated February 5, 2016).

Excerpt:

...As the number of successful and attempted Islamic terrorist attacks on America increased, the type of information that the Obama administration ordered removed from travel and national security databases was the kind of information that, if properly assessed, could have prevented subsequent domestic Islamist attacks like the ones committed by Faisal Shahzad (May 2010), Detroit “honor killing” perpetrator Rahim A. Alfetlawi (2011); Amine El Khalifi, who plotted to blow up the U.S. Capitol (2012); Dzhokhar or Tamerlan Tsarnaev who conducted the Boston Marathon bombing (2013); Oklahoma beheading suspect Alton Nolen (2014); or Muhammed Yusuf Abdulazeez, who opened fire on two military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee (2015).

It is very plausible that one or more of the subsequent terror attacks on the homeland could have been prevented if more subject matter experts in the Department of Homeland Security had been allowed to do our jobs back in late 2009. It is demoralizing—and infuriating—that today, those elusive dots are even harder to find, and harder to connect, than they were during the winter of 2009.

What are the possible reasons that the Obama administration ordered the scrubbing of those records?  I can think of two:

1.  The above-mentioned individuals were being used as exploitation platforms.

2.  The Obama administration is Islamophilic to the point of whitewashing Islam.

Other reasons?

Nature's Respite

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy:

Wry Humor — And Weekend Open Thread

Because we're so intellectually advanced...

*******OPEN THREAD*******

So, what's on your mind?

Please opine on the topic of your choice according to the parameters below:

Who's Winning This Race To The Nomination?

The Democratic field for the 2016 nomination:

Invasion Via "Refugees": Faking being a Syrian refugee for asylum in Europe

Worth the less than two minutes needed to watch this video, especially appropriate after Obama's February 3, 2016, visit to a Baltimore mosque with ties to terrorism and Islamic supremacism — and tacit gender apartheid (Asra Q. Nomani and Ify Okoyein in the New York Times):


At Bookroom, we read this:

...The refugees are acting as they are, not because they see themselves as charity cases, but because they see themselves as conquerors.

They know perfectly well that one doesn't defecate in a pool in which people (especially children) are swimming. They're doing it because they are performing the literal equivalent of the expression "I don't give a sh[*]t about you."

They know you're not supposed to rape women . . . that is, unless those women are the products of conquest, in which case raping them is one of Mohamed's commandments.

It's almost funny seeing Europeans trying politely to teach their conquerors how not to treat those whom they have conquered. I wonder how long it will take before the Europeans figure out that they're no longer in the driver's seat. And then I wonder whether they'll be able or willing to mount a counter-strike, or whether the twelve-hundred year-long Islamic jihad against Europe will finally have succeeded....

Europe is doomed.

And America is not far behind.

(hat tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance for the video in this blog post)

Curbing Crime?

Headline at the Associated Press on February 2, 2016:

DC bill would pay people stipends not to commit crimes.

Apparently a similar program in Richmond, California, provides up to $9,000 per person per year to those in the program, initiated in 2007.

According to the above-cited article:

The 2016 Iowa Caucuses

Sometimes a picture is worth 1,000 words, especially today:

Predictions, anyone?

And after the results are in, some Monday morning quarterbacking?