New Job and ACA

[angelacouet]

Hello,

I'm having an issue with adding the ACA to my taxes.

I needed it for the first 5 months of 2019 and I was able to add that info.

I worked 2 low income jobs during that time but it won't let me add the dates for those jobs. Rather, it is looking at my entire yearly income and telling me, "You made too much. You owe us."

How do I get the program to recognize that it shouldn't be looking at the whole year's worth of income rather just the first 5 months for those specific jobs when I can't add job dates?

This is very frustrating because I owe more than I should because of this blanket approach where I can't add job dates. 

[rjs]

You can't enter job dates because the Premium Tax Credit doesn't work that way. The total amount of credit you are entitled to for the year is based on your total income for the year, even if you only had ACA insurance for part of the year. Unfortunately, in your situation there might not have been anything you could have done to avoid having to repay part or all of the credit. The Advance Premium Tax Credit that you received in the first 5 months was based on the estimated annual income that you provided at the beginning of the year. If you did not anticipate having higher income later in the year, then even if you notified the marketplace of your higher income when you got the higher-paying job, it was already too late to avoid having to repay the credit. You had already received more than you were entitled to.

[angelacouet]

Thanks for your explanation. 

So, basically, people are being penalized for getting better jobs in the middle of the years. There is no way anyone can predict something like that. It should be based on the covered months because that's when I really needed the help. I didn't used the rest of the credit so why do I need to give back what I didn't use?

I'm just venting at this point.

Thanks for making the issue more clear.