Obamacare Tax Problems to Watch Out For

Medical Mysteries

There has been very little clarity about many ACA policies, leaving significant opportunities for error as people try to carve out their own interpretations. Businesses and individuals will be required to be compliant, but the reality remains that many may not know how to go about achieving this goal. Here are some ACA tax issues that NCCPAP feels CPAs and their business and individual clients should know about now.

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Employer Shared Responsibility

Effective Jan. 1, 2015, one of the main provisions of the Affordable Care Actemployer shared responsibilitywill begin. This means all employers with 100 or more employees are required to offer health insurance. Further, all employers will have required reporting for 2015. All employers will need to file the Form 1095-C with both the IRS and their employees by the end of January 2016. This form will provide essential information for employees to prepare their taxes. Specifically, it will verify the months that each employee had minimum essential coverage.

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Careful Before Checking the Box

If taxpayers are preparing their own returns, many may mistakenly check the box that affirms they did have minimal essential coverage, even in cases when that is not accurate. This is because individuals either don't know what minimal essential coverage entails, or are intentionally trying to avoid a penalty.

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Avoid the Penalty

For example, those who had insurance for half the year with an employer, but who were unemployed for half the year without health insurance, might think they had minimal essential coverage. In this situation they would be wrong since each person is required to have coverage for all 12 months to avoid paying a penalty.

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Truth or Dare

There is no way the government will be able to verify whether or not a person is telling the truth because employers have no mandatory reporting requirements for 2014. Even if someone had purchased an individual plan on their own, since the health insurance companies have no reporting requirements for 2014, there is no way for the government to verify whether someone had an individual plan or had no insurance at all.

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Watch the Timeframe

If someone purchased health insurance on the exchange, the government would be able to prove the months they were covered with the exchange-purchased insurance through Form 1095-A. For example, if an individual were uninsured for six months and covered with exchange-purchased insurance for six months, the government would only be able to see the timeframe the individual had exchange-purchased coverage. Essentially this person would not meet the minimal essential coverage guidelines and would be subject to a financial penaltythat is if the government had documentation to prove the gap in coverage, which it doesn't.

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Religious Exemptions

There is a lot of concern and confusion regarding all of the various ACA exemptions. Some are very clear: if you're a member of a religious sect, such as the Amish, or a member of a federally recognized Native American tribe, you are exempt from minimal essential coverage. Some Catholic religious orders like nuns don't need to have contraception coverage. Those are the basic and obvious exemptions.

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Fuzzy Wording

Not all exemptions are that easy to interpret, according to Stephen Mankowski, CPA, who is the Tax Policy Chair for NCCPAP, and a partner in the Bryn Mawr, Pa., accounting practice, EP Caine & Associates. "Here is where it gets fuzzy," Mankowski said. "You may be eligible for an exemption if you had financial difficulties, received shut-off notices, experienced the death of a close family member or were in prison for part or all of the year. In these situations, so much is left up to the taxpayer for interpretation. For example, how does one define financial difficulties, or a 'close' family member? If you claim either of those, it could land you a cushy three-year exemption, according to ACA guidelines. Of course proving these in the event of an IRS audit could cause problems down the road." Mankowski said. "There are many more exemptions beyond what I've listed here that will cause confusion to CPAs and the American taxpayer."

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Federal Repayments

"The repayment of premium tax credits is starting to get more attention," said NCCPAP President Sandra G. Johnson, CPA, who runs a practice under her name out of Bellmore, N.Y. "This is a conflict that has been underreported for a long time," Johnson stated. "Now people are realizing for the first time that they had a premium discount for the health insurance premiums they paid in 2014 because their premium cost was based on their 2012 income. When their income increased in 2014, their premium tax credit decreased. These individuals are now going to owe the government money, and payback will occur through their 2014 federal tax return. More and more taxpayers will be faced with this sad reality." Johnson is referring to how many taxpayers did not understand that their reasonable premiums were due to a government-offered discount based on the income they stated on their application (in many cases from their 2012 taxes). A higher 2014 income means taxpayers must now pay the government back for that premium discount that was initially credited to them if they are found ineligible.

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