Even though the April 15 tax filing deadline has passed, you might be eligible for some health law-related changes that may save you money down the road.
–If you owed a penalty for not having health insurance last year and didn鈥檛 buy a plan for 2015, you may still be able to sign up for a marketplace plan, even though the open enrollment period ended Feb. 15. Many people who didn鈥檛 have insurance and didn鈥檛 realize that coverage is required under the law are eligible for a special enrollment period to buy a plan by April 30. If you , you鈥檒l have coverage and avoid the 2015 penalty, which will be the greater of $325 or 2 percent of your household income.
–If you paid the penalty for not having insurance for some or all of last year and didn鈥檛 carefully check to see if you might have qualified for an exemption, it鈥檚 not too late. You can still apply for an exemption from the requirement by amending your 2014 tax return. It鈥檚 worth looking into since the is a long one. For example, if your 2014 income is below the filing threshold of $10,150 — or $20,300 for a married couple — you don鈥檛 owe a penalty for not having coverage. Likewise if insurance would cost more than 8 percent of your income or if you鈥檝e suffered financial hardships like eviction or bankruptcy.
–In February, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that 800,000 tax filers who received a federal subsidy to help pay their insurance premium and used the federal health insurance marketplace received incorrect 1095-A tax forms. These forms reported details about the advance premium tax credit amounts that were paid to insurers based on the consumers鈥 estimates of income. They were then used to reconcile those payments against how much consumers .
If you filed your taxes based on information that was incorrectly reported by the government on the form, you generally don鈥檛 have to file an amended tax return even IF you would owe more tax. But you may want to at least recalculate your return, says Tara Straw, a health policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
鈥淵ou have the option to amend if it helps you,鈥 she says. Unfortunately, the only way to figure that out may be to do the math on the tax form 8962 that you use to reconcile your income.
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