The federal government will give nearly 1 million Obamacare customers who received an incorrect tax form more time to file their returns.
The Treasury Department announced that taxpayers who still haven’t got a new tax form won’t be penalized if they don’t file by April 15 as long as they request an automatic extension. They need to fill out a form and send to the Internal Revenue Service by April 15 to get the automatic six-month extension to Oct. 15.
“If a taxpayer receives their [corrected form] before April 15 and is able to file using the form before the deadline, they should do so,” Treasury said Friday.
The automatic extension is available for every taxpayer as long as they get in a request form by April 15.
The penalty for not filing by April 15 mainly affects taxpayers who owe the government money, and the amount varies from case to case.
In February the Obama administration admitted that it sent out 820,000 forms to Obamacare customers with incorrect details. The form, 1095A, is used to calculate how many subsidies a customer should get.
About 50,000 people already filed their return and received either more or less subsidies than they were supposed to. Treasury previously said those taxpayers won’t have to file new returns and can keep any extra money they got, and those who received less can file again to get the money they should have received.
Last week the administration said that all but 1,500 have received corrected forms. The remaining ones have additional case work to complete and the administration declined to elaborate.
Treasury emphasized that only a small fraction of all taxpayers were affected by the botched forms.
For a majority of taxpayers, all they have to do is check a box to attest they have insurance through a government program or their job. Obamacare customers have more forms to fill out.
