Health insurance penalty

[taxmancometh--]

Hello, there is no way to bypass answering the health insurance information. I had to select to move on and am now unable to deselect.  Turbotax had said there would be a bypass option available March 2...

[TeresaM · Accepted solution]

The IRS announced on February 15, 2017 that they will immediately begin accepting returns that do not include health insurance information. This action resulted from a recent executive order aimed at reducing the burden on taxpayers.

Keep in mind, this executive order to repeal the Affordable Care Act does not change the current ACA rules that are in place, and taxpayers are still required to follow current ACA law. You may receive follow-up questions and correspondence from the IRS if you file a return that doesn’t indicate your health coverage status and this could cause a delay in any refund.

If you have not entered anything in the Health Insurance area:

If you enter the Health Insurance tab it will not let you Continue without selecting something on the first page but you may manually bypass the health care section by simply clicking on another tab.  When you get to the "File" section, you will not get an error and TurboTax will allow you to e-file.  You must make a conscious decision to bypass, as the current laws haven't changed.

If you have already entered information in the health care section and now want to leave it blank, here is a Workaround:  (TurboTax has already generated forms once anything has been selected.) 

Workaround:

• Click on the Health Insurance tab and select “None of us had it at any point”, and leave all the waivers blank.  It will trigger a penalty. 
• Continue on and finish the Health Insurance section.
• Click on My Account in the upper right, in the blue stripe
• Select Tools
• Click on Delete a Form, and remove  all healthcare-related forms (Healthcare Entry Sheet, 1095 entry, Form 8965). 
•  Next Go back to My Account and Tools
• Select View Tax Summary and Preview My 1040 (top of page) to confirm that there is no repayment on Line 46, and that Line 61 is completely blank.

 Note :  The key is to select “None of us ever had it at any point” because the checkbox for Full-Year Coverage will not clear otherwise.

[Unordo]

I am a US citizen living in Canada with my Canadian wife. I also pay taxes here and am covered under the medical system here. Do I need to show coverage when I am covered here in Canada.

[DoninGA]

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@Unordo wrote:

I am a US citizen living in Canada with my Canadian wife. I also pay taxes here and am covered under the medical system here. Do I need to show coverage when I am covered here in Canada.

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The requirement to prove health care insurance coverage on a US federal tax return was removed from the tax code after tax year 2017.