Filed under: Health Care, Personal Finance, Health Insurance, Income Tax, IRS
By Dan ManganThey paid their Obamacare fine, even though many of them apparently didn't have to.
About 7.5 million taxpayers so far have paid a penalty on their taxes for failing to have health insurance last year, as required for the first time by the Affordable Care Act. That number is well in excess of original expectations, officials said Monday.
The average penalty paid was about $200 a person, and in all $1.5 billion was collected by the Internal Revenue Service in these fines.
The Treasury Department said about 300,000 people who paid the penalty likely qualified for an exemption from having to have health coverage. There are a slew of exemptions from the Obamacare mandate based on income status or certain hardships.
The IRS will be reaching out to these taxpayers to inform them about available exemptions and note that they may benefit from amending their tax return.
About 12 million people claimed one of the many exemptions from the Obamacare mandate to have coverage, officials said. This represents about 9 percent of all filers, compared to the 10 to 20 percent that it had been estimated would avail themselves of an exemption. Another 5.1 million people failed to state they had health coverage, claim an exemption, or say they had paid the fine, officials said. The IRS is now "analyzing these cases to determine their status," according to a letter officials sent Congress.
The Obama administration had expected that between 2 and 4 percent of taxpayers would be subject to the Obamacare penalty this past filing season, which would have worked out to between 2.7 million and 5.4 million people. Instead, about 6 percent of taxpayers have paid the fine.
As a result, almost exactly the same number of people who selected Obamacare plans sold through government-run marketplaces by the close of open enrollment in 2014 opted or failed to get coverage that year, and agreed to pay the tax penalty.
Accepting Coverage
The higher-than-expected number of people paying the penalty underscores the challenges the administration continues to face in getting uninsured people to willingly accept coverage even after the ACA made it easier for them to do so.
The penalty for failing to have coverage last year was the greater of $95 per adult or 1 percent of adjusted gross household income. That fine rises to the higher of $325 per adult or 2 percent of household income this year, and increases in future years.This year was the first in which the IRS was dealing with many issues related to the Affordable Care Act. As expected, about 76 percent of taxpayers -- the equivalent of about 102 million returns -- simply checked a box on their return to indicate they had health coverage throughout the year, and weren't required to do anything else to comply with the ACA.
A much smaller group of people who purchased Obamacare health plans on government exchanges, and who received a federal subsidy to help pay for their plans, were required to file forms reconciling what they received in subsidies, and what they actually should have received. The subsidies can be worth thousands of dollars a year.
Only about 10 percent of subsidized customers got the exact amount of tax credits they were due. About 40 percent were owed more in the way of subsidies when they filed their taxes, and got an average of an extra $600. About 50 percent of subsidized customers owe money back, an average of $800, officials said.
Many Unfiled Returns
The Treasury Department said that out of 4.5 million taxpayers who received a subsidy, or tax credit, only about 2.7 million had filed a tax return that was processed by the end of May.
Another 360,000 subsidized Obamacare customers had filed for an extension on their taxes.
About 710,000 people who received subsidies haven't filed a tax return, and haven't applied for an extension, as required, officials said.
The IRS is reaching out to those people, and reminding them of their responsibility to file a return. If those people don't respond, they would lose their subsidy next year.
Another 760,000 who were subsidized, and who filed a return but didn't file a form reconciling their Obamacare subsidies, are also being contacted by the IRS.
CNBC revealed last week how TaxAudit.com, an audit defense company, said none of its clients were being questioned by the IRS about their compliance with the ACA on any issue except for having received a tax credit and not filing a form reconciling that subsidy amount.
No TaxAudit.com clients who merely claimed they had coverage, who qualified for an exemption, or who had failed to check the box indicating their coverage status were being questioned by the IRS, a company executive said.