1095-A Confusion with an HRA

[rpendry]

I've been using turbotax for many years but this year there is something wrong. I have been using marketplace to obtain healthcare insurance since I retired in 2020 and they always send me a 1095-A. I have and HRA from my previous employer that pays for my medical insurance premiums and when I apply for insurance healthcare.gov they specifically ask about an HRA and this disqualifies me from any premium tax credit.

When using turbotax I am told that if I received a 1095-A that I must enter the information or my taxes may be rejected by the IRS. My 1095-A shows zeroes in columns B and C but with turbotax this is unacceptable so I use the tax tool provided, enter the amounts in column B and the tax program qualifies me for a tax credit. I'm pretty sure that I will end up paying back all of the money that turbotax is calculating due to the fact that there is no place to enter my HRA information. If I have and HRA I'm not supposed the enter the premiums that I pay with it "HOWEVER" I am required to enter the 1095-A information! Catch 20/20! How do I make this honest yet deceptive entry?  Bottom Line, I have an HRA so I don't qualify for a premium tax credit when I purchase health insurance on healthcare.gov (marketplace, OBAMACARE) and the 1095-A that they send me is unacceptable but making required changes to it qualifies me for tax credits. What can I do???

[AmeliesUncle]

As long as you did not receive any Advance credit on column C, hypothetically you can file your tax return without the 1095-A or 8962 (despite what TurboTax is telling you).   While that it usually the case, occasionally it will still reject.

If you are certain you don't qualify for the Premium Tax Credit at all, enter 0.01 for column B (the SLCSP) and leave column C blank (blank, not zero).

There are certain kinds of HRAs in certain situations that SOMETIMES allow the Premium Tax Credit, but that gets more complicated.  My prior comments are assuming you don't qualify at all for the credit.

[rpendry]

Thank you for responding so quickly.

I did go back to the heathcare.gov website and found a lot more information. They state that if you did not qualify for a premium tax credit you don't have to enter the 1095-A when doing taxes just keep it with your records. It really got confusing to me because I don't ever want to pass up any opportunity to a break with our little SSA incomes and pension being taxed (they've dipped into every penny we've earned in our lifetime) now retirement too. So, when I get all the TurboTax advice about using the tool that healthcare.gov offer to calculate column B that is all zeroes I think well maybe something has changed and we are getting a little break from the government (it has happened in the past). But I also don't need to set us up for owing the government a bunch of money either on our little retirement incomes! TurboTax has always been so easy to use when we had a mortgage payment, children, jobs and itemized deductions but this little detail could most definitely through a big snag in our plans. I've done our taxes using TurboTax for probably 15 years.

With all that said

Thanks Again!!!