Hello,
This situation seems exceptional and uncommon enough that I can't find an answer despite repeated searches online and in the forums.
My wife is a lawfully present alien in the United States by Permanent Resident Card (aka green card). We both enrolled for a plan on the marketplace and were fully cleared and covered for 2023. I updated our marriage status in January of that year after getting legally married. She was unemployed that year because she was not yet legally allowed to work until she received her employment authorization from the government. Therefore, she had no income, yet was not eligible for Medicaid due to her immigration status of being a non-citizen.
Supposedly, if one is below 100% of the FPL, you do not qualify for the PTC. However, according to page 5 on IRS Publication 974, as well as page 8 of Instructions for Form 8962, she qualifies as an exception and is eligible.
What is perplexing me is that during the marketplace application, the PTC she was eligible for was higher than the premium of the plan in which she was enrolled. Therefore, I expected that come tax time she would be refunded the difference as a refundable credit. Yet when I examine her 1095-A, the amounts in column A and C are exactly the same and there is no refund. Just to experiment, I also fiddled with the numbers to place the household income above 100% of the FPL just to see if any refund would appear and it did not.
Could someone explain what I'm misunderstanding or doing incorrectly?
Thank you.
The Premium Tax Credit is only GIVEN for the amount up to the premium charged. The amount she was eligible is what your insurance would have been covered up to. So, if you would have had higher priced insurance, the premium tax credit would have been higher. If you would have had insurance that cost more than the premium tax credit, then you would have had to pay something to cover the difference between the credit and the amount allowed for the credit.
@DaedalusReturned wrote:the PTC she was eligible for was higher than the premium of the plan
The PTC can never be higher than the premium of the plan. The POTENTIAL credit could be higher, in which case you should have chosen a higher-priced/better insurance plan.