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Understanding Your Health Care Options: How Health Care and Taxes Come Together With TurboTax
For many people the Affordable Care Act was hard to understand, but health care is such an important topic that I wanted to help empower you with some knowledge about how things will effect your taxes in 2015. I think the first step is understanding this questions, What Is The Affordable Care Act?.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare is designed to ensure everyone has health insurance and imposes tax penalties on those who don’t. With this new law health insurance is available to everyone and required for most. In addition the process for shopping for health insurance has become easier and more affordable.
Now that we understand what the Affordable Care Act is, how does this affect filing your taxes in 2015? Great question, I can admit I was a bit frazzled at first but with my own understanding of the process and some help from TurboTax here’s how it works. 2014 is the first year all Americans are required to maintain health insurance, so you’ll be reporting it on your taxes in 2015. This means 2015 is the first year a penalty tax will be something to look out for. The great thing is with TurboTax the process is very easy, the TurboTax software has simplified everything as well as they have been simplifying the federal tax code for the past 30 year. With TurboTax the work is already done, you won’t even have to see the Affordable Care Act, ACA, forms. TurboTax has already done the work for you and will ask you the questions you need to answer so you can be confident your taxes are done right.
As far as the ACA goes all taxpayers will fall into 3 categories. So you’re either Insured, Insured through Exchanges, or Uninsured. If you’re currently uninsured you must sign up during the open enrollment period which is from November 15, 2014 through February 15, 2015. TurboTax even has a free calculator to estimate how much your penalty may be for 2014. The health care penalty is based on your family size and income. Definitely good information to know, so you can budget the loss in.
At the end of the day the Affordable Care Act is here and here to stay, it’s important that we all know how it works and affects us. With amazing tools that TurboTax provides, at least the process doesn’t have to be frustrating or confusing. TurboTax will empower you with the knowledge and skills to get through filing your taxes with ease.
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
