Report: Public Largely Unaware that Health Insurance Must Now be Reported on Tax Returns

According to the results of the Intuit TurboTax^® Health Survey, 48% of Americans are unaware that they are required to report their health insurance status on upcoming 2014 tax returns.

The survey included more than 2000 US adults ≥18 years of age and indicates that Americans are still largely unaware of the connection between their health care and taxes.

Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), 2015 will be the first year that Americans must prove they have qualifying insurance when filing 2014 taxes, or face a tax penalty. While 62% of uninsured Americans are aware that those without any health insurance will be required to pay a penalty, 87% do not realize that the deadline to avoid a tax penalty for 2014 has passed already, according to the survey’s findings.

In addition, 56% of those without health insurance were also unaware that uninsured individuals who meet certain criteria may qualify for an exemption from the ACA tax penalty. Another 45% of Americans are not aware there are discounts called premium tax credits designed to make health insurance less expensive for low-to-moderate income families.

“These numbers indicate that even with open enrollment in full swing, many Americans still do not know the correlation between their healthcare and taxes,” Sacha Adam, ACA product leader, TurboTax, said to BusinessWire.

The survey was conducted online in the United States by Harris Poll on behalf of TurboTax from November 6 through November 10, 2014, among 2022 adults ≥18 years of age and from November 13 through November 17, 2014, among 2014 adults ≥18 years of age. The online surveys are not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.—Kerri Fitzgerald

Source: BusinessWire.