Healthcare

Has Obamacare Made it Impossible for Taxpayers to Do Their Own Returns?

Has Obamacare Made it Impossible for Taxpayers to Do Their Own Returns?

The IRS Commissioner, John Koskinen, in a letter to Congress, revealed that more than one million individuals who claimed an insurance subsidy (premium tax credit) when they signed up for Obamacare through the State or Federal insurance marketplaces have yet to file a return. He reports that about 360,000 are on extension and another approximately 710,000 have neither filed their return nor filed an extension.

The reasons are quite apparent.

First of all, to sign up for Obamacare, one must estimate one’s income for the year, since the subsidy is based on the individual’s income, and the actual amount of the income cannot be determined until a full year later. To make matters worse, the subsidy must be reconciled against the premium tax credit based on the actual income for the year on the individual’s 1040 tax return.

Many have now discovered the dark side of Obamacare. If they received subsidies in excess of the amounts warranted by their income, they are now faced with having to pay part, or all, of the subsidy back. Those who received the subsidy are individuals of limited means and no doubt have limited, or no, means to pay the subsidy back.

On top of that, completing the maze of forms developed by college-educated IRS employees is almost impossible for the average taxpayer to navigate. Even professional tax preparers were astonished by the complexity of the forms. So now we have individuals who were used to filing short forms faced with the complex forms required by Obamacare. They don’t know how to complete them and can’t afford to pay a professional tax preparer to do it for them.

Maybe we can get Nancy Pelosi (D), who famously said “just pass the bill and we figure it out later,” to write some instructions on how to complete the forms—that is, if she has ever read that bill she pressed everyone to vote for.

It is no wonder that more than one million people have not filed their returns.

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Lee Reams, BSME, EA

Lee Reams, BSME, EA

Editor-in-Chief

Besides his role at CountingWorks as an educator and speaker to thousands of accountants nationwide, Lee manages a technical research service for a large group of tax accountants which sharpens his technical skills. Lee served on the Board of Blackline Systems, is a former Board of Director for the California Tax Education Council, is a Past President of the San Fernando Valley Chapter of Enrolled Agents, Member and Past Director for the California Society of Enrolled Agents.

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