1040-US: Claiming both Health Coverage Tax Credit and Premium Tax Credit

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Use the 8885 screen in the Health Care folder to complete Form 8885, Health Care Coverage Tax Credit. Enter X for each month the taxpayer and/or spouse qualify for the Health Coverage Tax Credit. To qualify, the taxpayer and/or spouse must be an eligible TAA, ATAA, RTAA, or PBGC payee or a qualified family member of the recipient, and covered by a qualified health insurance plan where the premiums were paid directly to the health plan, including premiums paid to "U.S. Treasury - HCTC."

Use the Qualified health insurance payments field to calculate Form 8885, line 2. Amounts you enter here are deducted from the total medical expenses you enter in Medical and dental expenses field in the A screen to calculate the allowable itemized deduction for medical expenses. If Form 8962 has allocated policy amounts with another tax family, include only premium amounts allocated to the taxpayer's family.

Claiming the HCTC and PTC

You cannot claim the Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC, Form 8885) and the Premium Tax Credit (PTC, Form 8962) for the same coverage for the same month.

All premiums qualify for both HCTC and PTC

Enter the premiums paid, including any Advance Premium Tax Credit, in the Qualified health insurance payments field on the 8885 screen and enter X in the Claiming HCTC (Form 8885) for all premiums field on the PTC screen.

Some premiums qualify for both HCTC and PTC

If only a portion of the premiums in the 1095A or PTC screen are included as qualified premiums on Form 8885, enter only the portion of the premiums that are not HCTC qualified premiums in the 1095A or PTC screen. For example, an eligible taxpayer can claim the PTC for January through September and then elect the HCTC for October through December. Enter premiums in the 1095A screen for January through September. If advance payments were made, enter the advance payments for the applicable months in January through December. Enter the total premiums paid for October through December in the Qualified health insurance payments field on the 8885 screen.

Note: If you are filing Form 8885, Health Coverage Tax Credit, and Form 8962, Premium Tax Credit, and the taxpayer received excess advance HTCTC payments, then review the Excess Advance HCTC Repayment Worksheet in the instructions for Form 8885 to determine any required adjustment for Form 8885, line 5.

Taxpayer and spouse elect different credits

If there are separate health care policies and (for example) the taxpayer elects HCTC for his coverage and the spouse elects PTC for her separate coverage, then the repayment limitation would apply to the spouse’s coverage. Enter premiums, SLCSP premiums, and advance payments for the spouse in the 1095A screen. Enter only the advance payments for the taxpayer in the 1095A screen. The IRS has not provided any guidance on how this repayment limitation should be calculated if both the taxpayer and spouse received advance payments of the Premium Tax Credit. UltraTax CS will apply the limitation from the Form 8962 instructions. If you need to change the limitation, use the Repayment limitation (Force) field in Screen PTC.

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