What you need to know about health insurance exemption
3 important facts about health coverage exemptions
If you meet any of these condition you may not need to pay for penalty fee.
- Exemptions are available based on a number of circumstances, including certain hardships, some life events, health coverage or financial status, and membership in some groups.
- You claim some health coverage exemptions on your federal tax return. Others you apply for with a paper application.
- You don’t have to pay the fee for any month you’re covered by a plan that qualifies asminimum essential coverage. If you’re uncovered only 1 or 2 months, you don’t have to pay the fee for any month.
Anyone with a gap in health coverage of no more than 2 consecutive months can claim this exemption.
If anyone else on your tax return qualifies, you can claim this exemption for them too when you file your taxes.
- You’re considered covered any month you had minimum essential coverage for even 1 day.
- Example: You didn’t have coverage from March 2 to June 15. Your coverage gap was 2 months – April and May. You qualify for the exemption.
- If your gap was 3 months or more, you can’t claim this exemption for any of those months.
- Example: You didn’t have coverage any day in April, May, or June. You can’t claim this exemption for any of those months.
- If your coverage gap crosses calendar years, the months without coverage of the second tax year aren’t counted for the exemption for the first tax year. But the uncovered months from the first year are counted for the exemption for the second tax year.
- Example: Let’s say you didn’t have qualifying coverage November 2014, December 2014, and January 2015. You’re eligible for the short gap exemption for 2014. But for the 2015 tax year, you’re not eligible for the short gap exemption for January 2015 because you didn’t have coverage for three consecutive months – from November 2014 through January 2015.
- If you had 2 or more gaps in coverage during the year you can claim this exemption only for the months of your first coverage gap. This is true even if both gaps are less than 3 months.
- Example: You didn’t have coverage any day in May or any day in November or December. You can claim this exemption only for May.
Do this first
Check your records to make sure you were uncovered for only 1 or 2 months. Do the same for anyone else on your tax return you want to claim this exemption for.
When you file your tax return
You can claim this exemption when you file your 2015 federal income taxes. Most people file their taxes for 2015 by April of 2016. The IRS will publish information about claiming exemptions on 2015 tax returns later in 2015.
If you don’t qualify for this exemption
You must qualify for another exemption or pay the fee for the months of 2015 you aren’t covered.Learn more about the fee.