Politifact: The 2010 e-mail Hall of Shame, election edition

[Joanne98]

Those wacky chain e-mails -- they just don't die. Even when we debunk something, we still get e-mails months from readers asking again, "Can this possibly be true?"

Well, usually, no, it's not true. We find the vast majority of chain e-mails to be Pants-on-Fire wrong. But that doesn't stop people from forwarding them around the Internet. Some of them live on for years.

With Election Day upon us, we thought it would be a good time to again answer the questions we're still getting from readers about chain e-mails. Here, we're summarizing the most persistent chain e-mails we've been asked about recently, even if we did the fact-checking some time ago. Feel free to forward this to everyone in your address book.

Under the new health care law, "all real estate transactions will be subject to a 3.8% Sales Tax."

This chain e-mail wrongly claims that the 2010 health care law will institute a new 3.8 percent tax on home sales. Guess what? It doesn't. We suspect the root of this e-mail is that the health care law does institute a new tax on the investment income of the wealthy - a 3.8 percent tax increase. But that's far short of of a tax on all real estate transactions. We rated this chain e-mail Pants on Fire.

Democrats and President Barack Obama "will sneak in a 1 percent tax on all banking transactions."

PolitiFact Oregon looked into this e-mail when it named Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., as supporting a plan to tax all banking transactions. The e-mail says transactions like depositing a Social Security check or cashing a paycheck will be included. It further claims legislation is in the works that has the blessing of President Barack Obama's "finance team." But scratch the surface and the e-mail's claims fall apart: There is bill -- put forward by one House member to wipe out the national debt -- but it has no support from the Obama administration, and DeFazio has nothing to do with it. The bill seems to be dying a quiet death in committee. We rated this claim Pants on Fire.

Starting in 2011, "you will be required to pay taxes" on "the value of whatever health insurance you are given by the company."

This chain e-mail says that the value of your employer-sponsored health insurance will be printed on your W-2 and that it will be taxed as income. The printed-on-your-W-2 part is true, the tax part is not. In a weird twist, the e-mail directed us to a Kiplinger newsletter that actually undermined the e-mail's claim. The Kiplinger letter states that the bill includes "a requirement that businesses include the value of the health care benefits they provide to employees on W-2s, beginning with W-2s for 2011. The amount reported is not considered taxable income." We rated this e-mail Pants on Fire.

The Democrats' health care bills would provide "free health care for illegal immigrants."

Actually, nobody gets free health care from the new health care law. In fact, a major part of the health care bill -- tax credits to help people with modest incomes buy their own insurance -- specifically excludes illegal immigrants. This chain e-mail spins its tale out of claiming that the verification procedures aren't tough enough for enforcing that exclusion. That point is debatable, but it's not the same thing as free health care. We rated this one False.

"The Senate voted this week to allow illegal aliens access to Social Security benefits."

Funny how this e-mail claims that the Senate voted "this week" to give illegal aliens Social Security, because we seem to get copies of it week after week after ... We were able to track this e-mail all the way back to 2006. Needless to say, the Senate has not voted to give Social Security to illegal immigrants. And unless our senators are trapped in a time warp, debating and passing the same bill every week, such a claim is impossible. It's Pants on Fire for this e-mail.

Continued>>>>
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/nov/01/2010-e-mail-hall-shame-election-edition/

And of course the MEDIA let the republicans tell all these lies on tee vee as they just sat there like potted plants!