Starting with the 2015 tax season (for 2014 returns), tax returns began including information about health insurance . For most insured Americans, reporting coverage to the IRS is a very simple process, and involves checking a box stating that they had coverage during the year. This applies to everyone who has Medicaid, Medicare, employer-sponsored health insurance, or individual market coverage (including on and off-exchange coverage, along with grandmothered and grandfathered plans). But what if you didn’t have health insurance? There’s a tax penalty for not having coverage , but people without coverage are actually more likely to qualify for an exemption from the penalty than to be subject to the penalty. In January 2016, the IRS reported that 7.9 million tax filers were subject to the penalty based on being uninsured in 2014, while 12.4 million tax filers claimed an exemption from the penalty. Similarly, the IRS reported in January 2017 that for the 2015 tax year, 6.5 mil...
