My wife and I have a hybrid system when it comes to managing our finances, i.e. a joint account for fixed and fixed-ish expenses and also individual accounts for personal expenses. We make about the same annual income, so it’s easy to keep it 50-50. We work for the same employer, so we have the exact same benefits.
We have had separate HDHP for the longest time, so each one of us can get a separate HSA that we fund directly from our paychecks. We never met our deductible as we were healthy, so we were not incurring into extra out-of-pocket expenses by having separate HDHP. However, our daughter has a minor condition that requires appointment with specialists as well as extra medical exams and stuff, so we could benefit from a family plan to reduce our overall deductible and out-of-pocket maximum.
The “problem” is that if one of us enrolls as the HDHP owner, my understanding is that person is the only one who can fund that HSA account with the full $8300. So I have a couple of questions:
- Can a HDHP owner fund two HSA accounts but stay within the maximum family limit? i.e. can I fund my HSA as well as my wife’s HSA with $4150 each?
- If I can’t fund two account directly, can I transfer funds from one HSA to another without paying taxes or exceeding limits? i.e. transfer $4150 from my HSA account to my wife’s HSA account
- If I contribute the full $8300 from my paycheck, how can my wife “pay me back” for her pre-tax $4150 portion? What tax rate should we apply to the $4150 so her take-home-pay remains the same as if she would have contributed those $4150 from pre-tax money?
Thank you in advance.
