Obamacare Tax Penalty to Hit Millions

REUTERS/JONATHAN BACHMAN
REUTERS/JONATHAN BACHMAN

Treasury officials have announced that 3-6 million people will be forced to pay the Obamacare tax penalty for not having health insurance in 2014. This is the first time the Treasury Department has given such an estimate.

The penalty is $95, or 1% of income above a certain threshold (roughly $20,000 for a couple). So you could end up owing the IRS a lot of money.

Take a married couple with $100,000 in income – their bill comes to $797, according to the Tax Policy Center ACA penalty calculator.

The penalty for remaining uninsured rises to the larger of $325 or 2% of income in 2015.

Approximately 75 percent of America’s taxpayers are already insured through work or the government and “will simply have to check a box on the Form 1040.”

It’s expected that another 15-30 million will receive an exemption by filing Form 8965. Undocumented immigrants and low-income Americans aren’t subject to the requirement, nor are “those for whom insurance premiums were more than 8% of their household income.”

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