It's not a yes or no answer. You can choose not to answer the health care question, but there is no guarantee that the IRS will not come back to try to collect.
In 2014 and 2015, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
provided leniency to those individuals who failed to include proof of their
health coverage during the previous year. However, the IRS had made it clear
that any Form 1040s (the standard tax form) filed for the 2016 calendar tax
year without line 61 filled in -- the line that would demonstrate to the IRS if
you had health coverage or paid the SRP -- would be rejected.
But Trump's executive order changed everything.
According to Yahoo Finance, the IRS will once again
be accepting electronic and paper tax returns for calendar year 2016 without
line 61 filled in.
Now here's where things get tricky. On one hand, the
ACA is still the health law of the land, even if it seems to be living on
borrowed time. This means the individual mandate is still law, and those who
choose not to purchase health insurance should be paying the SRP, unless
they're exempt. On the other hand, without line 61 filled in, the IRS has no
guarantee that the taxpayer paid the SRP or was even insured in 2016.
