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Showing posts with label Single. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Single. Show all posts

Sunday, May 12, 2019

Getting Married And ObamaCare Subsidies


I am reading a case that reminds me of a return from last year’s filing season. I had an accountant who became upset, arguing that the result was unfair.

I agree, but this is tax.

I started practice in the eighties, and a significant portion of my tax education was at a law school.  Tax accounting classes tended to be staccato-like:  issue-driven, procedural and reliably arithmetic. Tax law classes were case and doctrine-focused: what is income, for example, and we would study the concept of income as it evolved over the decades.

It seemed to me that tax law early in my career followed – as a generalization - more of that law school feel: corporate liquidations and the General Utilities doctrine; the claim of right doctrine and North American Oil; business purpose and Helvering v Gregory. There were strong Ways and Means and Finance Committee chairs with some understanding of the issues (and precedent) their committees were addressing.  

But those were different politicians. Both they and taxes have gotten progressively weirder.

Congress went on to introduce something called uniform capitalization, arguing that accountants did not know how to absorb costs into inventory; tax items – personal exemptions or itemized deductions, for example – that would evaporate like a Thanos movie moment; an alternative minimum tax that would tax something that ultimately went down in value; the increasing refundability of tax credits, meaning that those at the low end of the income scale had as much if not more opportunity to game the system than any big-baddy McMoneybags did.

Let’s look at the Fisher case.

Christina Fisher began the year as a single mom. She married Timothy in November. Christina was struggling, and she received Obamacare subsidies.

You may recall that there are two relevant aspects to Obamacare that will come into play in this case:

(1)  If you are below a certain income level, you might be entitled to some – or even full – subsidy of your health insurance premiums.
(2)  You can use that subsidy to pay your premiums immediately rather than wait to the end of the year and receive the subsidy via a tax refund.

There was no question that Christina was entitled to a subsidy for more than 10 months. Her circumstances changed when she married; she no longer qualified.

Time to prepare her taxes.

One is supposed to attach a reconciliation of projected income when receiving the subsidy to actual income ultimately reported on the tax return. The Fishers did not.

The IRS did it for them. They also wanted approximately $4,500, saying she was not entitled to the subsidy.

A rational mind would expect that the tax law would go to a month-by-month calculation. There was no doubt that she qualified for 10 months. Let’s allow for some doubt in the month of marriage. Let’s also disqualify the last month of the year because of Timothy’s income.

At worst she would have to pay back 2 months, right?

Nah.

She has to use her household income for the year – including Timothy’s income.

Then she takes half of that amount for her monthly testing.

Not her OWN income, mind you, but one-half of combined income for the year.

Who came up with this?

Not the best and brightest exercising due deliberation, clearly.

Well, using even one-half of the combined household income, Christina failed all 10 months one would have expected her to pass. She owed almost $4,500 to the IRS.

And that is why my accountant lost his mind last year. He could not believe that what he was reading is really what was meant. It made no sense! Surely there is an alternative calculation? Does the tax Code allow a facts and circumstances …?

Ahh, he is still young. He will learn.


Friday, January 13, 2012

The SMLLC and the Family Payroll Tax Exemption

If you are a single-member LLC (SMLLC) reporting for tax purposes as a sole proprietorship, you may be interested in a recent payroll tax change.

An SMLLC is reported for income tax purposes as either a corporation or a proprietorship. A question came up in recent years on how to treat an SMLLC for payroll tax purposes. In August, 2007 the IRS issued final regulations requiring the SMLLC to be treated as the taxpayer for employment tax purposes. This meant that it had to get an identification number separate from its sole member, for example. These regulations became effective January 1, 2009.

This in turn raised the question on what to do with the family employment tax exemption. The family tax exemption allows a proprietor who pays his/her spouse or children the following:

·         For a child under age 18, unemployment, FICA and Medicare taxes will not apply
·         For a child over 17 but under 21, unemployment taxes will not apply
·         For a spouse, unemployment taxes will not apply

By treating the SMLLC as an entity distinct from the sole member, the parent was not employing the family member, at least technically. This threw-out the family employment tax exemption.

Talk about unintended consequences.

The IRS has now reversed course and has expanded the family tax exemption to SMLLCs – and has made the exemption retroactive to January 1, 2009. This could mean that amended payroll tax returns are in order.

Example: You operate as a SMLLC. You have 7 employees, which include your spouse, a child age 16 and a child age 19. What are the federal employment tax consequences?
a.       The child age 17 is exempt from FICA, Medicare and unemployment
b.      The child age 19 is exempt from unemployment
c.       The spouse is exempt from unemployment