Health Insurance Penalty

The new tax law, which was enacted on December 22, 2017, makes changes to the rules for the penalty for not having health insurance (line 61 on Form 1040), but those changes are not effective for the 2017 or 2018 tax years.

Clients remain subject to the penalty for not having health insurance for themselves, their spouses and/or their dependents until the 2019 tax year.  Beginning in 2019, the penalty will no longer apply.

In addition, as we discussed in an earlier post, the IRS has indicated that it will no longer accept “silent returns,” where a taxpayer leaves line 61 blank (i.e., does not check the box indicating that the taxpayer had health insurance coverage and also does not fill in a penalty or exception form).