It's impossible to tell if the IRS will aggressively track down those missing payments. The agency could inundate silent filers with thousands of follow-up notices, requesting more information on their health insurance status. The IRS can easily check the veracity of the responses: By later this year, the agency will have collected and processed millions of health coverage records , giving it a good idea as to whether you owe a penalty or not.
Taxpayers can always refuse to pay Obamacare penalties. The IRS isn't allowed to collect on the health coverage penalty the same way it collects other tax debts. That means the agency can't garnish your wages if you fail to pay the penalty. The agency can, however, deduct the penalties you owe from future tax refunds.
Politics could be a key factor in how the IRS enforces the individual mandate this year.
On Friday, Trump said his predecessor’s health law was "imploding and soon will explode and it's not going to be pretty." If the Trump administration wants to further undermine Obamacare and its insurance markets, loosening enforcement of ACA penalties is one of several options.
On the other hand, Republican efforts to re-write the ACA seem to have failed for now. The GOP overhaul of Obamacare would have eliminated the individual mandate entirely, erasing the obligation to pay penalties retroactively to the beginning of the 2016 tax year. After cancelling a vote on the bill on Friday, however, House Speaker Paul Ryan said, “we’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.”
Before paying her penalty, Wallace wanted to wait and see what Congress would do. Then, earlier this month, she and her husband got word that someone else had filed a fraudulent return on their behalf. That forced them to file their taxes and pay the penalty. If Congress ends up eliminating the penalty, they figured, they could file an amended return and get the money back.
That's looking unlikely now, to Wallace's disgust and disappointment. "I'm more concerned about Washington's inability to solve the problem than I am about the $962 I have to pay for the penalty," she said.
This article was provided Bloomberg News.