Grab Your Wallet and Cough by Pat Conrad MD

uncle sam

The Affordable Care Act promised a bunch of stuff to a bunch of folks in all its rush to final passage glory/infamy. One was tax credits to lower income recipients to offset the cost of purchasing insurance. I could digress here for a brilliant soliloquy on the problems with taking from some (tax credits) to give to others, but moving on…

Some who received advance federal cash for purchasing health insurance may now have to pay some of it back come April 2015. USA Today reports that “Some married couples could owe $600 or $1,500 or $2,500 or even more” because “When you file that 2014 tax return next year, the Internal Revenue Service will compare your actual income for the year with the amount you estimated when applying for exchange-based health insurance under the health insurance law.”

Apparently one should humbly approach the dark throne at Healthcare.gov, It’s Name be praised, and move through the labyrinth to assess whether a “move, an increase or decrease in income, a marriage or divorce, the birth or adoption of a child, whether you started a job that offers health insurance and whether you gained or lost eligibility for other health care coverage…[or other] income and life changes” apply to you.

But with the jacked up health insurance premiums that were occasioned nationwide by the ACA, tax credit recipients would do better to hang on to their cash instead of sweating the IRS. Christmas shopping is right around the corner, and Tax Day is six months off.