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This week, HSCA signed on to a letter to the IRS containing comments in response to the "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Notice of Public Hearing on Taxable Medical Devices (77 Fed. Reg. 6,028 [Feb. 7, 2012].)"
The comments focus on the potential for device companies to deduct the pending medical device tax from their income for federal purposes; this would allow these companies to pass the tax through to their customers, including hospitals. This "sidestep" of the intentions of the Affordable Care Act is a concern to HSCA, the American Hospital Association (AHA), the Federation of American Hospitals (FAH), the Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA), and the Association for Healthcare Resource & Materials Management (AHRMM), who each signed on to these comments.
The letter states, "The proper policy for the medical device tax would be to prohibit device manufacturers from passing the tax through to their purchasers. This approach will afford manufacturers the benefit of reducing their income by the amount of the tax through a deduction, but will also require them to pay the tax in a manner consistent with their “shared responsibility” commitment to support the passage of the ACA."