Five Years Later: Obamacare Subsidies Cause Confusion and Frustration for American Taxpayers

WASHINGTON – With the President’s signature domestic policy, Obamacare, about to turn five, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) today released a fact sheet outlining how the law’s subsidies have caused more confusion, frustration, and delays for American taxpayers across the country.

Confusion:The President’s health law has created added complexity in the tax code and further confusion for taxpayers. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released two new complex tax forms to use to monitor compliance with Obamacare’s subsidy provisions. Form 1095-A, the “Health Insurance Marketplace Statement,” is issued to individuals who purchased insurance through an exchange and is used to complete Form 8962, the “Premium Tax Credit” form, which burdens taxpayers with complex premium data calculations on a monthly rather than a yearly basis. These two forms combined have 99 new lines for entry and 16 new pages of instructions.

Frustration: In the first six weeks of filing, 52 percent of customers who enrolled in insurance through the state or federal health insurance exchanges have to repay a portion of the Advance Premium Tax Credit (APTC) that they received under Obamacare, according to H&R Block. That same report found that individuals, on average, are repaying about $530, which is decreasing their tax refunds by roughly 17 percent.

Delay:An error in the President’s health law may delay tax refunds for hundreds of thousands of Americans.On February 20, 2015, the Obama Administration announced that it sent out about 800,000 incorrect important tax statements. The administration reported incorrect benchmark premiums on the Form 1095-A and is now asking affected individuals who have not filed their taxes yet to wait until they receive their corrected 1095-A forms.

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