MA health care tax penalty???

[saraswati007 0]

Hi all.... to those who live in Massachusetts, I have a pressing question.

My husband (from the UK), and I got married in Boston in December 2008. We immediately put him on MY health insurance. So he was covered in the US from the day he moved here and we got married.

However, since he wasn't officially covered in the US for 11 months of 2008, we're being forced to pay the health care tax penalty in Massachusetts. (For those who live outside MA, don't worry - this is a Massachusetts only thing.)

Does anyone know how to appeal this, or avoid having to pay the penalty?? It seems stupid to have to pay the penalty when he wasn't even a US resident for most of 2008.

THANKS!!!!

[Kez/JWolf 6]

Hi all.... to those who live in Massachusetts, I have a pressing question.

My husband (from the UK), and I got married in Boston in December 2008. We immediately put him on MY health insurance. So he was covered in the US from the day he moved here and we got married.

However, since he wasn't officially covered in the US for 11 months of 2008, we're being forced to pay the health care tax penalty in Massachusetts. (For those who live outside MA, don't worry - this is a Massachusetts only thing.)

Does anyone know how to appeal this, or avoid having to pay the penalty?? It seems stupid to have to pay the penalty when he wasn't even a US resident for most of 2008.

THANKS!!!!

If he was not a resident of MA for most of the year when you filed your return it does ask if either you or your spouse was resident for the whole year, if not then you have to put the dates you moved to MA and you would only need to show a 1099HA for the period that he was resident.

Your other choice is to not include him on your state return as he does not need to file a state return until he meets the residency qualifications.

You say you are being billed for the tax penalty, so I take it you have already filed, all you can do is file an amended return or speak to the revenue department and seek guidance from them.

[saraswati007 0]

The return amount is being generated by TurboTax. I think I might try filing the State return through the MA DOR website, to see if that's more straightforward (turbotax imported a lot of the information from my federal return and wouldn't let me change it for the state one).

Will let all know how it goes filing directly through the MA DOR system.

Thanks!

Hi all.... to those who live in Massachusetts, I have a pressing question.

My husband (from the UK), and I got married in Boston in December 2008. We immediately put him on MY health insurance. So he was covered in the US from the day he moved here and we got married.

However, since he wasn't officially covered in the US for 11 months of 2008, we're being forced to pay the health care tax penalty in Massachusetts. (For those who live outside MA, don't worry - this is a Massachusetts only thing.)

Does anyone know how to appeal this, or avoid having to pay the penalty?? It seems stupid to have to pay the penalty when he wasn't even a US resident for most of 2008.

THANKS!!!!

If he was not a resident of MA for most of the year when you filed your return it does ask if either you or your spouse was resident for the whole year, if not then you have to put the dates you moved to MA and you would only need to show a 1099HA for the period that he was resident.

Your other choice is to not include him on your state return as he does not need to file a state return until he meets the residency qualifications.

You say you are being billed for the tax penalty, so I take it you have already filed, all you can do is file an amended return or speak to the revenue department and seek guidance from them.