Deductions & credits

As you see, this issue is sufficiently complex that it may not have a single right answer. This is because even the IRS says "you may use any computation method that results in reporting amounts that satisfy the rules for both the deduction and PTC", which indicates that TurboTax gets to choose the process.

I have a simple case here. MFJ. Total premiums paid to insurance company: $4,800. Total PTC paid to insurance company: $3,600. Total PTC allowed: $2,127. Self-employed health insurance deduction: $2,673 which is $4,800 minus $2,137, or total premiums paid to insurance company less allowed PTC. 

Now, in this case, the 8962 reported that there was excess PTC of $1,473. This does not affect the Self-employed health insurance deduction, but it DOES appear on Schedule 2, line 1a.

So, in this simple case, the SEHID is equal to the amount paid to the insurance company less the PTC allowed, which is seems right.

#2

In this case, I increased the PTC paid in advance to the insurance company to $350/month.

 MFJ. Total premiums paid to insurance company: $4,800. Total PTC paid to insurance company: $4,200. Total PTC allowed: $1,965.  Excess PTC is $2,235. Repayment limitation is $1,900.

Self-employed health insurance deduction: $2,500, which is equal to the amount that the taxpayer paid ($600, or $4,800 - $4,200) plus the amount of PTC that was repaid as limited ($1,900).

This duplicates your case, but in this case, TurboTax sets the SEHID to the actual premium paid plus the PTC repaid as limited, not the actual premium plus the total PTC (your first case of $1,000 actual premiums paid plus $4.000 total PTC).

As you know very well, the calculation of the SEHID is complex, because of the limitation of repaid PTC ad well as the curious interaction of the SEHID and the Self Employed SEP, SIMPLE and qualified plans deduction. Years ago, I did write about this when the interaction of lines 16 and 17 on Schedule 1 (1040) interacted in strange ways that turned out to be correct.

Furthermore, I just made up the numbers on the 1095-A, and it's possible to enter numbers that would be nonsensical, which would render the exercise pointless.

Why don't we do this? How about you pick a case that seems to be wrong and send us a token for it? My attempts to reproduce it have been time-consuming and I still did not get the same results as you. It would shortcut the study if you could just give us a case that seems to be problematic.

Would you send us a "sanitized" version of your return? "Sanitized" means that all personably identifiable data is removed so that we have no idea who you are.

You do not have to sanitize the return, because the process of creating a token (an entry into our data base that points to your sanitized return) invokes a process which removes all personally identifiable data.

To give us a token, please do the following:

Online

• Log into your TurboTax Online tax return
• On the left, click on Tax Tools
• Under Tax Tools, click on Tools
• In Tools Center, click on Share my File with Agent
• TurboTax will give you a “token”, a 7-digit number
• Post the token number in this thread
• Be sure to add to that post “@” “billm223” (without the space in between) so that I will be notified

Desktop (Windows)

• Open your return in the desktop product
• Look along the top and click on Online
• Click on Send Tax File to Agent
• TurboTax will give you a “token”, a 7-digit number
• Post the token number in this thread
• Be sure to add to that post “@” “billm223” (without the space in between) so that I will be notified

Desktop (Mac)

• Open your return in the desktop product
• Look along the top and click on Help
• Click on Send Tax File to Agent
• TurboTax will give you a “token”, a 7-digit number
• Post the token number in this thread
• Be sure to add to that post “@” “billm223” (without the space in between) so that I will be notified

Thanks,

@lac528