On the page you should see the question, “What type of High Deductible Health Plan did [spouse] have on December 1, 2016?”. The choices are Family, Self only, or None.
If the spouse had been covered under the taxpayer's family plan, you might think you should answer Family to the question. However, the answer should be None.
It is referring to what type of plan the spouse held in their name on December 1, 2016. If the spouse had their own separate HDHP on that date, then choose the type of plan that the spouse had. If instead the spouse was covered under the plan in the taxpayer's name, then you should choose None.
To go back to the section of your return to answer the questions again, use the following steps:
On the page you should see the question, “What type of High Deductible Health Plan did [spouse] have on December 1, 2016?”. The choices are Family, Self only, or None.
If the spouse had been covered under the taxpayer's family plan, you might think you should answer Family to the question. However, the answer should be None.
It is referring to what type of plan the spouse held in their name on December 1, 2016. If the spouse had their own separate HDHP on that date, then choose the type of plan that the spouse had. If instead the spouse was covered under the plan in the taxpayer's name, then you should choose None.
To go back to the section of your return to answer the questions again, use the following steps:
The question in TT should be written more clearly. It asks whether I 'have' an HSA. That could mean that the HSA is through my employer or that there's an HSA that covers me. I think of my wife's HSA as something I have ... even though it's through her employer.
Here we are a year later, and the question is STILL unclear. It's bad enough that they didn't catch it themselves; there's no excuse for not updating it when users have repeatedly asked about it. I wonder if they're tracking how often someone comes here to search for the answer without posting about it.
Oh my god, this was so helpful. Every year this question takes me in circles and I get so frustrated. This answer was exactly what I needed. There should be a prompt on the TurboTax page saying (if your wife was covered under a family plan in your name, enter None)
I absolutely agree with you. For these reasons I always wanted to go to a real tax preparer. Every year tax filing is kind of scary to me. It takes hours and hours for questions like these. Its insane that this question is since 2016 in TT communites, but still TT didn't update their software. Wake up TT. I might stop TT next year it is so frustrating.