The Internal Revenue Service announced Feb. 24 it will not be collecting additional taxes from any taxpayers who filed after receiving incorrect information from the federal health insurance marketplace.
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On Feb. 20, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that approximately 800,000 taxpayers who received coverage through HealthCare.gov and qualified for subsidies via premium tax credit received the wrong information on the Form 1095-A, “Health Insurance Marketplace Statement,” sent to them by mail.
Those taxpayers that received a Form 1095-A in February were urged to wait until March to file their taxes, when they can expect to receive a new, corrected form. Or consumers can also download a copy of their Form 1095-A through their HealthCare.gov account.
If a person has already filed with the incorrect information, he or she will not be required to submit an amended return, according to a statement from a Treasury Department spokesperson. CMS estimates that approximately 50,000 tax filers, or less than 0.05 percent, have already filed their taxes using incorrect forms.
The incorrect information in the form concerned the “second-lowest-cost Silver plan” in the taxpayer’s area. This amount is typically used to represent the benchmark plan used to determine the amount of subsidies a taxpayer is eligible to receive. For some people, this amount was calculated incorrectly, though CMS stressed that it will not be an issue for the majority of people who received coverage through HealthCare.gov.
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Nonetheless, some individuals may still choose to file amended returns. According to the statement:
“A tax filer is likely to benefit from amending if the 2015 monthly premium for his or her second-lowest cost Silver plan, or ‘benchmark’ plan, is less than the 2014 premium. For example, if a filer’s original form lists a benchmark premium of $100 and the updated form lists a premium of $200, it may be of interest to refile.”
Taxpayers are encouraged to seek the assistance of their tax preparer with any questions about refiling.