(California) Form 3853 bug. I am eligible to have short gap coverage. I did not have health insurance coverage for 3 consecutive months. TOKEN #: 1001068

[dippinb]

When I unselect August/September/October, I get penalized.

When I unselect ANY OTHER consecutive 3 months, the penalty is waived.

PLEASE ADVISE.

Token #: 1001068

[hbl3973 · Accepted solution]

dippinb,

Yes, this certainly seems to be a bug.  But please exit and reenter TurboTax to check if that resolves the problem.  If not, I'll report it.

It appears you have a desktop version.  If so, try going to the Forms view and find form 3858 and try to enter the exemption code C (short term coverage gap) to override.

Finally, if the glitch reproduces, the override doesn't take, and you are anticipating a refund excluding the health coverage penalty, I would defer filing until the issue is resolved.  There is no penalty applied to refund returns filed after April 18th.

Good luck and please keep me informed.

[dippinb]

I appreciate you so much.  Thank you.  Yes, I spent a lot of time on it.  Have exited and restarted many times before doing the override.  Had an update yesterday, but it still didn't fix the problem.  Please report it.

I was able to make sure that the penalty was waived by checking only 2 months, THEN I went into forms to override.  The penalty remained waived.

I notice that I get penalized if I unselect January/February/March OR August/September/October.  Penalty is waived for every other 3 consecutive months of no insurance (e.g. February/March/April or SEP/OCT/NOV).

I was thinking that there was some kind of weird rule involving January or October.

Thank you again.  I can finally proceed.

[hbl3973]

dippinb,

I've reported the issue.  Glad you were able to work around it.  The Jan-Feb-Mar trio would be specially handled to check if the immediately preceding Dec was covered.  But the Aug-Sep-Oct glitch is definitely a bug.

[dippinb]

Understood.

You are too awesome. Thank you so much.