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Me (22F) with husband (24M), who is active duty Air Force.

At the beginning of 2016 I was Single, and making well below the poverty line; in 2015 I made $11,000, and in 2016 alone I made $7,000. I registered January 2016 for a plan under ACA - I paid nothing, and it was subsidized by a APTC (Advanced Premium Tax Credit) of about $235/month.

Now I have our W2's minus one, but I calculated income and tax withheld for that job with paystubs, and together in 2016 we made $36,000: me $7,000, husband $29,000. I was filling out Form 1040A for a friend when I saw Line 29, "Excess Advance Premium Tax Credit Repayment," and I was like "Oh shit I have to pay some of that back??" because in previous years, I had never had to because I've always made under the poverty line.

I knew getting married brought me above the poverty line, so I sat down this morning with my husbands W2 and my W2's + the estimations from the late one, and Form 1095-A I got from the Health Insurance Marketplace. I filled out Form 1040A, followed the instructions which led me to Form 8962 for Line 29. Following the instructions for that led me to Publication 974 to find out if I qualified for "Alternative Calculation for Year of Marriage," which could lower our Annual Contribution Amount. It took me over an hour to get everything sorted out because there were so many worksheets, but bottom line is: even though I qualified for Alternative Calculation for Year of Marriage, that is calculated in Worksheet I Pub. 974 by taking our total income $36,000 and dividing it by 2, giving $18,000 to calculate how much I could have paid for my own health insurance in the months before I got married, which is WAY more than the $7,000 I actually earned before getting married and moving in with my husband.

After completing every worksheet, we come out owing $1,200 back to the government/IRS for the Advanced Premium Tax Credits given to me for my health insurance in 2016. That SUCKS. Is there any way around this? Are we allowed to file Married Filing Separately in our case? Would doing so help us at all?

I'm about to look into filing separately more myself and fill out Forms 1040A for each of us separately and see what that does to our total taxes owed to see if it's better, but I would appreciate any advice in the meantime.

Thanks for reading.



Submitted February 03, 2017 at 10:03AM by MxJaeger http://ift.tt/2l4WbbN

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