If Covered California cannot verify that you filed a federal tax return, they will send you a letter stating your health insurance subsidies may end. The letter mildly accusing you of not filing your taxes could be the result of filing your taxes in October. You can attest that you have filed, or will be filing your taxes, to maintain your subsidies for the next year.
Covered California checks an IRS database of members to confirm they have filed a federal tax return. If you filed with an extension after April 15th, your federal tax filing status may not have been logged in the IRS system when Covered California checked the tax filing status. Consequently, many people who file their taxes with an extension are getting the Covered California letter stating they cannot confirm if the primary tax filer submitted a tax return. Another issue is if the primary tax filer for the last tax year is different than who is listed on the Covered California application.
If you have confirmed that the primary tax filer is correct, then you can attest that you have filed or will filing a federal tax return. The Covered California service center, your agent, or you can mark the tax filing attestation. In your Covered California account, scroll down to Account information and expand the menu box. Find Tax Filing Attestation blue hyperlink under Update Case Information and click it.
After the wheel spins for a minute, you eligibility information will display. If everything worked, you will see that you are eligible for financial help. If it only shows Covered California Plan or Not Eligible, there may other issues with your application preventing enrollment or the subsidies.
You can review your health plan with the subsidies from the Enrollment Dashboard link.
Another way to confirm that your attestation was updated was to go to Account Information and clicking on Case History.
In the transaction table, the attestation event will be logged as Admin Verification/Eligibility Update, with the user ID and the date of the event.
YouTube video of the Covered California Tax Filing Attestation steps.
