1095-A for partial year after COBRA??? Is this Form 8962 correct?

[fauxpaus]

I'm a little confused on the form 8962.  Here's the situation.

1) I was paying for COBRA (not the employer subsidized one...my employer subsidy ran out in 2018) from Jan-Oct 2019.  I paid something like $700/month for it and it ate up the majority of my savings.  I finally turned to the "healthcare marketplace".

2) For Nov-Dec, I was on the "Covered CA" website, got insurance for less, qualified for the PTC as my AGI was about 19,000.

When filling out the form 8962, it seems to be indicating that I owe the entirety of the PTC back because for the 2 months that I had coverage under the ACA, my enrollment premium total was 1038.1, my annual applicable SLCSP premium was 760.02, my annual contribution amount was 932 (19,759/12140=162% giving applicable percentage .0472,), and the annual advance payment of PTC was 616.48.    

So, if this form 8962 only takes into consideration the 1095-A, it looks like I paid hardly anything for my health insurance all year, and owe back $616.48 for the two months for which I got assistance.  However, nothing in my situation changed all year except that I switched from COBRA to the ACA/Covered CA plan because I couldn't afford COBRA anymore.  Am I missing something?  

Does the IRS just not care that I paid $7000 in premiums before signing up for ACA/Covered CA?  I paid the amount quoted to me by Covered CA based on my income.  Do we all just get screwed if we signed up for ACA/Covered CA for less than the full 12 months?????  

[Critter-3]

Look at the 8962 ... what line did the $616 show up on ?  

At 19K of income you should get more credit as a refund not owe back ... and the prior Cobra insurance has no bearing on the 8962. 

[fauxpaus]

Yes, that was my intuition as well.  I feel like, at most, I shouldn't owe anything since this rate for my health insurance was calculated by Covered CA based on my income.  I was mostly asking about the COBRA because I just can't imagine why this is computing that I owe back the full $616 credit that I received.

However, $616 shows up on line 33c of the 1095-A.  On the 8962 that apparently goes to line 11f.

FYI I'm doing this all manually - my tax prep software somehow left this all out.  This isn't me being confused after the fact.  This is me being confused because I just received a letter from the IRS telling me to reconcile, and I'll be darned if I can figure out why I owe.  I'm hoping I'm just doing some fundamental math wrong.

[Critter-3]

You are not completing the 8962 correctly ... go back to line 2 ... that is where you are making your first mistake.  Use the instructions here since you are trying to do this manually  : 

https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-form-8962

[fauxpaus]

Thank you for taking the time to reply.  I appreciate it.

I was reading the instructions when I did this - sorry if I didn't make that clear.  Despite me reading the directions, I'm posting here because I'm confused at the outcome and want to make sure it's correct.  Apparently it's not.

Line 2 appears to be modified AGI and I don't have any of the modifiers, and the directions indicate this is line 8b from my 1040.  Line 8b from my 1040 is $19,759 (sorry, I guess I rounded down to $19,000 for the original post), and that's what I currently have on Line 2.

If you could clarify how I'm filling out the form incorrectly, specifically line 2, I would appreciate it.

[Critter-3]

Ok ... what exactly is on the 1095-a in columns A,B & C  and for which months ???

[fauxpaus]

On the 1095-a form, Lines 21-30 (Jan-Oct) have -0-.

Lines 31 and 32 (Nov and Dec):

Column A  = 519.08

Column B = 380.01

Column C = 308.24

Line 33 (annual totals):
Column A: 1038.16

Column B: 760.02

Column C: 616.48

[Critter-3 · Accepted solution]

When I compute the 8962 using your figures I get a $12 repayment ...  you must read the lines and instructions very carefully on this confusing form ...

[fauxpaus]

Thank you for your detailed reply.  Your example page helped me tremendously.   I see that my problem is that I accidentally didn't skip line 11, and then used line 11 for my calculations.   Originally, I thought I was probably making some sort of stupid mistake, and I clearly was, so thank you so very much for assisting me in figuring that out.

Much, much appreciated, x 10000000.

- Jen

[Anonymous]

Hello Jen,

Can you post details of the solution you found? I am in the same situation, with 8 months COBRA and then ACA with APTC for 4 months.  My initial calculations show I owe a big amount to the IRS, even though my taxable income (AGI minus deductions) is close to zero.

You mention the example page, can you share that with me?

Thank you for your attention and I will appreciate your help in this matter.