Why is company provided health insurance tax free, but individual health insurance is not?
During World War II, the United States (US) instituted wage and price controls.  To attract better employees, companies would offer benefits to get around salary limits.  Health insurance was one of the more successful benefits.   At that time, income taxes were newer and there were many ways to evade them.  Companies could generally deduct expenses.  So at that time, health care was deductible because everything was.  And at that time, only wages were taxable compensation from employer to employee.   Since that time, many other benefits have become non-deductible for employers, e.g. housing or the reduced deduction for meals and entertainment.  But health care is generally regarded as different, as a necessity.  While everyone needs to eat, not everyone needs to eat at a $100 a meal restaurant.  People who need expensive health care really need it.  People who eat expensive food just prefer it.   And of course, health care is more intermittent where food is relatively consistent.  You don't need ten thousand calories one day and zero the next.  But some families have no health care expenses in a year while another might have cancer or a pregnancy.  Note that medical care expenses can be deducted for individuals if they are large enough in aggregate and you itemize.   And of course both businesses and workers have incentives to maintain the current system with deductibility.  Health insurance is a common benefit.  Housing is not (although it's worth noting that travel housing and meals are deductible).  So there have been few people impacted by making housing taxable while many people would be impacted by taxable health insurance.   You can deduct health insurance costs if self-employed.  It's also not true that health insurance is the only benefit with preferential tax treatment.  Retirement and child care are also deductible.  Even meals and housing can be deducted in certain circumstances.  The complex rules about what and how much is deductible.   There have been rumbles about normalizing the tax treatment of health insurance and medical care, but there is a lot of opposition.  Insurance companies oppose making all healthcare expenses deductible, as that reduces their effective benefit.  They would prefer only insurance premiums be deductible.  Traditionally employed individuals oppose making health insurance taxable, as that would increase their taxes.  So the situation persists.  There isn't quite enough support to move in either direction, although the current compromise is economically silly. All questions regarding why is activity X taxed but activity Y taxed differently boils down to: The legislature wanted to promote or discourage the activity. By making employer provided healthcare tax free to the employee, the average worker like the plan. Not only is a significant portion not coming out of my paycheck, I also don't have to pay taxes on the benefit. Some organization pushed for this and the legislature agreed. This probably is a question that belongs on History but here's the basic reason: the or Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974 established that health benefits under approved plans were not taxable to the employee.  If the employer were to pay for an employees non ERISA approved individual plan, it would be a taxable benefit. The longer story is that many polticians (esp. President Richard Nixon) were concerned that public pressure was going to lead public sentiment toward nationalized health care.  This made health insurance more affordable to employees and effectively made it a cheaper way to compensate employees similar to how 401K contributions are worth more (in nominal terms) to the employee than an equivalent amount of cash.  While the law was not signed by Richard Nixon due to some other stuff that was going on, it was something proposed and pushed by his administration. The idea is that the premiums (or costs) associated with the plan are a business expense, you know that already.  The distinction here is that employees don't pay premiums, they elect to contribute. The company sponsors a plan, the employees then choose to accept less salary in order to participate in the employer's plan.  The idea is that you're foregoing income. Why is the employee not taxed on this cost?  One major reason is that the employee has no say in, and often no idea, what the gross costs are (some find out if they ever receive COBRA election paperwork). There are more benefits than strict healthcare that are Section 125 eligible.  The government has a vested interest in keeping the population healthy, and when the ERISA laws and Section 125 were written it was (and still is) a pretty low friction way to get health insurance out to more people.  At this point, taking away the tax break from the employees would be a huge government take away from most of the population.  Try to get a politician to take something away from taxpayers. Why doesn't the deduction exist in kind to people buying individual coverage?  Ask your legislators.  There are thousands of preferential tax treatment oddities, where some industry will get some sort of benefit or break.  I'm not sure what leads you to think there needs to be some supremely logical reason for this oddity to exit. Basically a company who provides health insurance for their employees provides it as part of the employee's salary package. This is an expense by the company in its pursuit of making income. In general, tax deductions are available on any expense incurred in deriving income (the exception is when social policy allows deductions for other types of expenses). If you pay for your own health insurance individually, then this expense is not an expense for you to derive your income, and as such is not tax deductible.
"Others have pointed out that many benefits offered by employers ""for free"" are actually taxed; the employee must pay taxes on the value of what they're receiving (usually services of some kind). This is called imputed income. Also pointed out was that healthcare is an exception; a specifically protected class of benefits that aren't taxed. But sometimes they are. Many companies now offer domestic partner health coverage as well, regardless of whether the couple is in any kind of civil union or other arrangement. The costs to the employee vary, but it's often that they simply pay double of what their individual coverage contribution would be. Independent of the employee's direct contribution for their domestic partner, they must also pay taxes on the value of the employer's cost of the coverage. This can be significant, as typically the employer is paying the lion's share of the healthcare cost." As others have said, it depends entirely on what benefits are provided, and how much of the cost of those benefits is paid by the employer and how much is paid by the employee, and compare that to what it would cost to obtain the necessary/equivalent coverage without employer assistance. In my case, my employer pays more than $10,000 per year toward the cost of medical, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance for myself and my family. That's almost 20% of the average total household income in my state, so it is not an insignificant amount at all. "Its more than just ""taxes"" it's increased company funding for medical insurance, work comp insurance, disability insurance, etc etc.  There are many many top line liabilities that contribute to the final bottomline. All of the laypeople on here can say, oh there's such a huge revenue or gross profit and not know the details of the net net profit." "When one says that ""corporations are people"", in a legal sense, they are saying that they have the ability to enter into binding legal agreements in a manner similar to people. This allows corporations to do things like own a building or a car, or enter into a contract. This is so that an individual does not have to do so. This keeps individuals from being liable for the activities of the corporation (it also keeps the individual from running off the the corporation's car or selling the corporation's building).  If they are using it in any sense other than the legal sense, it's either hyperbole, ignorance, or pandering.  Now, if you set yourself up as LettersFromTheSky, Inc, then you would very well be able to get all the same tax deductions and benefits as a corporation. But you would also be liable for everything that a corporation is liable for (namely, a higher standard of reporting and different accounting methods)." "That's right. It is the far right that have fought Medicare and single payer health insurance from the 70s.   Ronald Reagan famously recorded a LP deriding Medicare as the slippery slope to socialism.  Health insurance is a tool large corporations use to #1 keep employees frightened of losing their job and #2 discouraging employees from leaving their ""organization"" and starting a small business that will compete with them.  It is anything but a ""poorly"" thought out policy. If large corporations felt it was bad for business they would join the fight for single payer which would relieve them of one hell of an expense.  They could save Billions! but they don't because they want it this way. It must be worth a lot of money to them." That is exactly how the insurance companies work. What you described here falls under P/L. If you are buying insurances you are betting that you might get sick. Same as when insurance companies sells you insurance they are betting that you won't get sick. No one will sell you insurance if you are oreads sick. That's why you have government to take of you. Of course there are pools of healthy and unhealthy people. The healthier the better for the company. No one is in it to loose money. "It seems like if that were true, then if everyone were in one group, you'd get the biggest discount of all.  My preference has been for single payer, but recently I saw a guy suggesting single-group, multi-payer, or SGMP. This was just a comment from a physician in a medical journal, and I don't have the link and haven't been able to find out anything more about it, but it seems intriguing. It had something to do with insurance companies bidding to provide coverage services.  edit: [Here it is](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1211514#t=comments):  &gt; JOEL SPALTER, MD | Physician - Infectious Diseases | Disclosure: None  &gt; FAYETTEVILLE AR  &gt; October 02, 2012  &gt; Single Group Multi-Payer  &gt; True reform resulting in universal health insurance and access to care is achieved by state mandates for insurance with replacement of individual or group underwriting with underwriting by ""Dutch auction"" for a percentage of the single group consisting of all of the residents of a State – Single Group – Multi-Payer (SGMP). Each successful insurance company would be responsible for payment of the percentage of the total costs for medical services equal to the percentage of the population insured. This preserves the integrity of the bidding process.    &gt; States are free to establish the public contribution to premiums. SGMP prevents exclusion of insurance for pre-existing conditions or due to genetic background, absent individual underwriting; guarantees maintenance of health care insurance independent of place, or even existence of employment; assures equality of access to providers due to a single established remuneration scale; and assures patients' choice of providers free from any empanelling by insurance companies. Market forces will govern providers' attempts to gain and hold market share.   &gt; A single group eases statistical comparison, with EMR, of 50, State patterns of care." Yeah, me too, as I said. Actually what I'd really prefer is single payer, but failing that, getting health insurance separated from employment would be a big step forward. If people really knew how much they are paying for health insurance, things would change.  I've never worked for an employer that didn't renegotiate health insurance every year, often changing insurance providers every year. To the extent that HR departments are competent in finding the best value, the current environment is pretty dynamic and competitive. Are individuals going to be as competent and well informed as HR departments? I don't know, but I do know that simply making a market free doesn't guarantee lower prices if consumers are ill-informed and bad at making decisions.  As for wages, currently companies are not required to carry health insurance, and many have dropped it already without increasing wages, so I don't see an upward pressure on wages from greater employee mobility.  But it's true that if there were a single large pool for insurance to be based off of, large businesses would no longer get the pool advantage of health insurance over small businesses. Hence my preference for single-payer, or single-group/multi-payer. "The piece is a little misguided at best and poor journalism at worst. The problem lies in the difference between what's deductible for individuals and what's deductible for corporations. The short version of the story is that corporations can deduct a hell of a lot more things than individuals can. Individual deductions are spelled out in the Internal Revenue Code. Stuff like medical expenses (above 7.5% of your AGI), certain educational things, etc.  For corporations, the basic rule is that they can deduct any ""ordinary and necessary"" business expenses. That includes operating, travel, interest, employee, etc.  I wish that the article had cited specific sections of the Code if this was some kind of loophole or something, but alas, it appears that they didn't. That leads me to believe that these companies are deducting the portion not paid to the government as a business expense.   ~~For what it's worth, I don't believe that a company can deduct those expenses for tax purposes unless it's to ""protect their business interests."" My assumption (I don't have the time or desire to search case law right now) is that settlements with the US Government are considered to fall under that definition.~~  **EDIT** - See my comment [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/business/comments/11dbzu/federal_regulators_have_lauded_a_series_of/c6ll7ez) for the relevant Treasury Regulation dealing with this." "Just like all employee benefits there is a focus on removing or limiting owners of businesses' ability to abuse tax preferences under the guise of an employee benefit. As you point out there is an overall plan maximum 401(k) for employer contributions and match contributions.  There is a nondiscrimination test for FSA programs (there is also a nondiscrimination test for medical plans under sections 125 and 105(h)).  Employer contributions are counted toward the total of HSA contributions.   Why an HSA has a different maximum arrangement than 401(k) is anyone's guess.  But the purpose of the limit is to prevent owners of companies from setting up plans that do little more than funnel tax free funds to themselves.  An owner/employee could pay themselves a wage, contribute the maximum, then have the ""employer"" also match the maximum, so there are limits in place." In the Canadian system there is still health insurance plans. They cover things like optometrists and dentists which are not covered by the government.   The real problem with drug prices in the US is that the government gives the drug companies a monopoly ( through patents ) and prohibits negotiating prices. The financial incentives make doctors and insurance companies favour more expensive drugs (for bigger kickbacks) It's not YOUR problem, but it is mine. every expense garnered from using insurance makes the cost go up. and as the article stated, that employer had 1/4 mil hit to his insurance due to drugs etc. that is sure to increase his insurance rates, thus he needs to be more mindful of whom he hires. thus, anyone who wants to get hired by a large experienced company needs to keep this in mind. people don't like to think how their freedoms can negatively impact other people. never could it be argued that freedom has a negative impact. Well sure. Everyone wants free healthcare. But if it's a service that everyone gets, then everyone has to pay the government for it in taxes. One way or another we pay for it.  The issue is: Are we going to rein in Big Pharma and the insurance cartel? "This is ridiculous. Of course some companies don't pay taxes each year. Off the top of my head, NOL's (net operating losses) can be carried forward 20 years and will definitely reduce tax liability. For that matter, a loss during any year prevents paying income tax (though sales, property, ad valorem and other taxes may apply). Other companies may get capital credits, green credits, or other subsidies that might prevent a tax liability. None of these indicate that a corporation is getting away with anything. The IRS is a lot better at its job than most people think.  The point is, you can't look at any individual year and make an accurate assessment of a company's (or even an individual's) tax burden. It's completely dishonest reporting.  Source: I'm a state tax auditor, and my job is to make sure corporations pay what they are supposed to.  EDIT: additionally, 2010 was the heart of the recession for a lot of companies. There were a LOT of corporations that took losses that year. So to say that ""GE took in 14.2 billion and paid no taxes"" is misleading: you have to say WHY they paid no taxes or you're just blowing hot air. Taxes are assessed on **income**, not **revenue**. There is a big difference." "This is a really interesting question and something a lot of work is being done to understand.  I'm going to look at the closely related question ""Do non market-cap etf weighting methods consistently outperform once you take into account their investment biases?"" Let's use revenue weighting as a reason why investment biases are so important.  In revenue weighting, you would own almost no fast-growing tech companies as they generally have little revenue.   This sounds great if we are talking about say Pets.com in the late 90s but you also would miss most of the rise of Google. To believe in these ETFs consistently outperform (adjusted for risk) you would have to have a strong reason to believe that earnings, sales, or dividends are a better predictor of company value than market value.  Market analysts include the above three metrics and many more when pricing stocks so out-performance using only one of the above metrics seems unlikely. There is one caveat to this and that is value and small cap stocks have been shown to give slightly better risk-adjusted returns in the very long run (see Fama/French) and many of these alternative weighting methods will have a value or small cap bias.  First, it is unclear if this out-performance will continue now that it is more widely known.  Second, even if you believe this will continue you can more easily and cheaply get this bias though value/small-cap etfs than these weighting schemes. In the end, the only thing that is perfectly clear is that higher fee investments will generally under-perform."