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New Member
posted May 31, 2019 5:31:38 PM

I had a new baby born in October, does he count as having had health insurance coverage all year?

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4 Replies
Level 15
May 31, 2019 5:31:39 PM

The baby is not counted as having had health insurance all year. If he did have health insurance, he had it only for the months that he was alive. Part of a month counts as a full month. So if he was born in October he had coverage for October, November, and December. When you go through the Health Insurance section of the interview, you indicate that he had insurance for part of the year, and you indicate which months he was covered. TurboTax will automatically fill out Form 8965 giving him an exemption with code H for the months before he was born, so there will be no penalty for not having coverage. The following is the description for exemption code H in the IRS instructions for Form 8965.

"Member of tax household born, adopted, or died — During 2015 a child was added to your tax household by birth or adoption, or a member of your tax household died during the year, and you can't check the full-year coverage checkbox on your tax return."

However, the rules for claiming the baby as a dependent are different from the rules for health insurance coverage. As xmasbaby0 said, in the Personal Info section, when TurboTax asks you how many months the child lived with you, you have to select "The whole year."

Intuit Alumni
May 31, 2019 5:31:42 PM

Please follow rj's instructions as they are more accurate. 

Level 15
May 31, 2019 5:31:44 PM

And make sure you say in Personal Info that he lived with you the whole year.  You need to say that for a newborn.

Level 1
May 31, 2019 5:31:46 PM

Hi, I know this has been posted long ago, but TurboTax employees can be so dumb and don't know how to answer. So, my baby was born in July 2017, I listed him as full year in the dependent info, but in the Health Coverage, I listed him as having insurance from July to December. Is that correct?