How Obamacare’s Tax Complications Are Playing Out
In a January Think Tank post, I noted potential complications the health-care law’s interactions with the tax code could present for millions of filers this season. In just the past week, we’ve seen:
* Many recipients of federal subsidies have been required to repay some of that money when they filed their taxes. Although some people overestimated their 2014 income when they applied for subsidies, and received a larger-than-expected refund as a result, the majority of subsidy recipients (52%) did the opposite, according to an H&R Block analysis released Tuesday. Those who underestimated their income and collected oversize subsidy payments in 2014 have seen their refunds reduced, H&R Block said, by an average of $530—or, approximately 17%—as the federal government collects the overage.
* Some filers are paying an average $172 in taxes for non-compliance with the individual mandate, the H&R Block analysis said.
* On Friday, the Obama administration announced that about 800,000 recipients of subsidies had been mailed incorrect tax forms. If these households have not yet filed their 2014 taxes, their tax returns—and thus their refunds—will be delayed until they receive the corrected form from the federal government.
*The administration also said Tuesday that the estimated 50,000 households that had received incorrect tax forms and had already filed their 2014 taxes would not be required to repay monies to the federal government if, because of the incorrect forms, they had underpaid their tax and subsidy obligations. The announcement did not explain why an error discovered in January was not made public until last week, or how much this leniency will cost the federal government, or whether the office or contractor responsible for the mistake will face financial penalties for its error.
Last week, the administration announced a special extension of the Obamacare enrollment period, from March 15 to April 30, for households that discovered during the tax-filing season that they were subject to the individual mandate tax. The administration said that the enrollment extension would be limited to individuals who attest they were unaware of the mandate tax penalty before filing their taxes, and that it would not return in future years. There is, however, no independent verification of people’s claims about the tax penalty, and the administration could easily find reasons to implement an open-enrollment extension in the future.
The administration’s enrollment strategy seems inclined toward leniency—for the policy reason of trying to enroll as many individuals as possible and for the political reason of avoiding actions that could make the law more unpopular. Some advocates of a longer enrollment period have cited the ability to “diminish hostility” toward the law as one reason to allow Americans a second bite at the enrollment apple.
This raises two questions. First, whether and how much executive actions such as the forgiveness associated with the tax form errors will cost taxpayers. Second, whether future administrations, which may not be as favorably inclined toward the health-care law, will take as many steps to cushion citizens from adverse effects of the law.
This post was originally published at the Wall Street Journal Think Tank blog.