1095-A with blanks

[jjanse]

So I'm having trouble figuring something out with my 1095-A that I got from healthcare.gov. 

Some context: I had health coverage through healthcare.gov for all of 2022, all in all, things were alright. Paid the premium every month with no issues. Then around summertime of 2022, I went online to healthcare.gov to look something up and along the way I realized I qualified for a premium credit of $309. I think at the time when I signed up I opted to not get it as it said it would affect how much I got back on my taxes the following year. But  given the situation I was in that summer I could have really used the money. I decided then to accept the credit and it knocked $309 off my monthly bill so that was nice. 

Fast forward to now: I got the form in the mail and like all my other forms I go ahead and start filling out on turbotax. and per the instructions on the page it remarks If any months on your form don't have amounts, leave them blank. Simple enough, right? I enter the information leaving the 0.00 boxes blank, but when I click continue it refuses to continue as it requires an actual amount. 

Month	A. monthly enrollment premiums	B. Monthly second cost silver plan (SLCSP) premium	C. Monthly advance payment of premium tax credit
January	346.38	0.00	0.00
February	346.38	0.00	0.00
March	346.38	0.00	0.00
April	346.38	0.00	0.00
May	346.38	0.00	0.00
June	346.38	0.00	0.00
July	346.38	0.00	0.00
August	346.38	357.83	309.00
September	346.38	357.83	309.00

October	346.38	357.83	309.00
November	346.38	357.83	309.00
December	346.38	357.83	309.00

Annual Amounts

4156.56

1789.15

1545.00

I clicked on the link on what to do if column B has 0.00 listed and it expressly says to NOT put a zero: 

For each month you had insurance, make sure you do not input $0 in Column B. If your 1095-A reflects $0, reach out to your marketplace provider to find out what the Second Lowest Cost Silver Plan amount was.

So I used the tax tool on the link, and it took me back to healthcare.goc and it had me fill out some info. Afterwards it listed my Monthly SLCSP premiums at $350.42.

I plugged those amounts in to the 0.00 parts on column B and it changed my initial projected refund from $1400ish to a whopping $4000! Obviously, my first thought was "OKAY, that can't be right!" and I promptly deleted them again. What I did do in the end is I left all the original amounts that reflected the 1095-A that was sent to me, only difference was I left the 0.00 blank. Then I typed 8962 into the search box, which gave me the option to go directly to the one on my return. After that, the website calculated my data as it was entered, updating my return to around $1600, which seemed fairly accurate.

So I've been trying to do some homework and I'm seeing people having similar problems. I've also read some comments on different websites where in people had entered in the info from the tax tool and they had gotten audited because the IRS claims the SLCSP don't match. IRS instructions aren't any more helpful. So I could use some input. I have yet to talk with an actual expert about this. As cool as it would be to get $4000 back, I have a feeling that sounds too good to be true. But honestly, I don't care how much I can get back, I just want to file this right.

Any feedback would be helpful

[MinhT1]

On your form 1095-A, it is frequent that the Marketplace will fill in a 0 in column B for any moth where you do not have a premium credit in column C.

This is wrong as an incorrect Second lowest cost silver plan will lead to an incorrect calculation of your premium tax credit.

It is normal that your refund increases when when you fill in the SLCSP numbers given by the Tax tool.

The SLCSP premium is incorrect if:

• Part III, Column B has a “0” or is blank for any month someone in your household had the Marketplace plan
• You had changes in your household that you didn’t tell the Marketplace about — like having a baby, moving, getting married or divorced, or losing a dependent

If either applies to you, you’ll use the government's tax tool to get the premium for your second lowest cost Silver plan. Failure to do this will result in a wrong calculation of the premium tax credit.

[jjanse]

Rather than use the tool, shouldn’t I just fill in the rest of column B with similar amount that showed later in the year ($357.83)? Cause when I used the tax tool it came out to around 352 or something close to that and it clearly said “these are not the amounts you paid.”

It goes without saying the blanks for column C should stay blank as I didnt use the credit for those months, right? But the page will likely prevent me from continuing unless all the boxes have something in there (although I think I found a work around to that). I did recall seeing a older post that had a similar issue, and the tax expert suggested that they enter 0.01 in place of the blank, that way the system just rounds them down. Does that make sense?

[MinhT1]

You should use the Tax tool to find out the SLCSP for each moth and fill column B with those numbers.

As for column C, for the months you did not get the premium tax credit, you should the boxes blank.

[jjanse]

@MinhT1 

Okay, coming back to this now that my ordeal is finally over. I have concluded that your advice was NOT the right thing to do at all. I followed both your advice and the advice of another tax expert at turbo tax that I communicated with prior to filing my return, and while both of you have me the same advice, the IRS seemed to think otherwise. 

My return got delayed because the 8962 that was part of my return, where I added the missing amounts using the tax tool from healthcare.gov, had amounts that did not reflect what the IRS had. I had to fax them a new 8962 form to reflect exactly the way my original 1095-A looked. Thankfully they accepted it and finished my return, and I still got my refund, albeit somewhat reduced from what I originally thought I would get. But I'm not complaining. 

What I will complain about is the fact that all of this was born from bad program design on the part of Turbotax. I couldn't finish my return on the website all because it wouldn't let me enter 0.00 in some boxes despite the fact that is exactly what it would have been.  

I hope whoever has a similar problem in the future will come across this and know this is potentially bad advice. 

[AmeliesUncle]

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@jjanse wrote:

@MinhT1 

Okay, coming back to this now that my ordeal is finally over. I have concluded that your advice was NOT the right thing to do at all. I followed both your advice and the advice of another tax expert at turbo tax that I communicated with prior to filing my return, and while both of you have me the same advice, the IRS seemed to think otherwise. 

My return got delayed because the 8962 that was part of my return, where I added the missing amounts using the tax tool from healthcare.gov, had amounts that did not reflect what the IRS had. I had to fax them a new 8962 form to reflect exactly the way my original 1095-A looked. Thankfully they accepted it and finished my return, and I still got my refund, albeit somewhat reduced from what I originally thought I would get. But I'm not complaining. 

What I will complain about is the fact that all of this was born from bad program design on the part of Turbotax. I couldn't finish my return on the website all because it wouldn't let me enter 0.00 in some boxes despite the fact that is exactly what it would have been.  

I hope whoever has a similar problem in the future will come across this and know this is potentially bad advice. 

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Unless you did not qualify for the Premium Tax Credit for those months (such as because you were eligible for certain other insurance), the advice given is correct.  You need to look up the amount, and enter the correct amount.

If the IRS did not accept those amounts, the IRS is wrong and you can try to get it corrected.    You should not have faxed an incorrect 8962 that was missing information (column B).  You should have responded by explaining that you had to look up the correct amounts for column B because it was missing.

[ed723]

Hi there! 

Dealing with the exact same issue now. Refund has been delayed since April. 

I spoke with a representative and said I would need to send in my copy of 1095-A to prove what the totals listed are. In terms of the 8962, did you have to write in the numbers so it matches your original?