Taxpayer Medicare Part B, Spouse Self-Employed with exchange coverage. Insurance deduction? 2020

[Anonymous]

Trying to figure out the specifics on this situation:

• Taxpayer is retired, has minimal W2-reported income, and is NOT self-employed. Receiving Social Security benefits (started during 2020), with Medicare B withheld premiums reported on SSA-1099 (also started during 2020).
• Spouse (MFJ) has W2 income and profitable self-employment on Schedule C.  Purchased health insurance through exchange.
• Neither is eligible for employer-sponsored group coverage.

Using TurboTax Home & Business 2020.

How best to report this?  Would it be like this?

• When reporting SSA-1099, do NOT include withheld Med-B premiums here, just report net benefits as reported in Box 5, and
• In 1095-A section, report info reported on 1095-A for the self-employed spouse to figure PTC (or amount due), checking "I'm self-employed and bought a Marketplace plan," selecting the SE business from Jan-Dec to associate that business with the policy.
• For SE spouse's Business expenses, enter these Insurance Payments > Health Insurance Premiums > enter "Medicare Part B: $XX" (amount reported from taxpayer's SSA-1099), and any out-of-pocket premiums, even though these are the taxpayer's premiums, not the self-employed spouse's premiums.

In other words, manually enter ALL Med-B premiums as "self employed" health insurance with the self-employed spouse's Schedule C, even though these premiums are for the taxpayer, who isn't self employed; and for the spouse, report all premiums through 1095-A/PTC, so that it flows through as an adjustment to income (Sch1/L16).  Sound correct?

[ColeenD3 · Accepted solution]

Yes. If you were self-employed and had a net profit for the year, you may be able to deduct, as an adjustment to income, amounts paid for medical and qualified medical insurance on behalf of yourself and your spouse. 

You can include Medicare Premium as a self-employed health insurance deduction. When you enter the expenses related to your self-employment, enter your Medicare premiums in the Less Common Expenses section (not the SSA-1099 section). This deduction will show up on Schedule 1, line 16.

Enter the 1095-A as you described above.

SE Medicare