Another Affordable Care Act Oddity

To help more people obtain health insurance, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides a subsidy in the form of a refundable, advanceable tax credit – the Premium Tax Credit (PTC). Generally, if your household income is at least 100% of the Federal poverty line, but not over 400% of that line, and you are not offered affordable coverage from your employer, you are eligible.

For many people, their household income is roughly the same each month. But not for everyone. Perhaps you started the year with monthly income within the eligibility range and obtained subsidized insurance for those months. But, then you get a better paying job or a bonus (but still no offer of affordable health insurance from your employer), and your annual household income goes above 400% of the FPL? Well, then you have to repay the subsidy you got in the earlier months even though for those months, you could not afford the coverage.

Sounds rough, but not easy to resolve. If the PTC were changed to be based month by month on your income, it would favor those who can defer lots of income to the last month of the year. Perhaps the problem is more tied to the “cliff” in the PTC that causes someone to completely lose the subsidy once their income crosses the 400% of the FPL (more on that here). And, all of this puts the PTC person in a situation that an employee with employer-subsidized coverage is not in. That is, there is no cliff that causes an employee to lose his or her income exclusion for what the employer pays towards the employee’s health coverage.

What do you think would work to make the PTC more fair?

Original Post By:  Annette Nellen

Annette Nellen, CPA, Esq., is a professor in and director of San Jose State University’s graduate tax program (MST), teaching courses in tax research, accounting methods, property transactions, state taxation, employment tax, ethics, tax policy, tax reform, and high technology tax issues.

Annette is the immediate past chair of the AICPA Individual Taxation Technical Resource Panel and a current member of the Executive Committee of the Tax Section of the California Bar. Annette is a regular contributor to the AICPA Tax Insider and Corporate Taxation Insider e-newsletters. She is the author of BNA Portfolio #533, Amortization of Intangibles.

Annette has testified before the House Ways & Means Committee, Senate Finance Committee, California Assembly Revenue & Taxation Committee, and tax reform commissions and committees on various aspects of federal and state tax reform.

Prior to joining SJSU, Annette was with Ernst & Young and the IRS.

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