By Maggie Fox, January 28th, 2015
Two to 4 percent of taxpayers will end up paying a fine because they didn’t have health insurance last year, federal health officials predicted Wednesday.
This is the first year that Americans will have to worry about health insurance at tax time. The 2010 Affordable Care Act requires that just about everyone have health insurance or else pay a fee in the form of some extra income tax.
Most taxpayers — about 75 percent — already do, according to the Health and Human Services department. They will just check a box on their 2014 tax returns to say they did have coverage.
“When it comes to health care and taxes, the only change the vast majority of people will notice is the requirement to check a box to indicate that they had health insurance all year through their job, Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare or the Veterans Affairs,” HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell said in a statement.