How important is a 1095-C form if I declined employer health insurance?

But doesn't the 1095-C affect whether you can get the premium tax credit? I thought if your employer offered "affordable" coverage according to the IRS rules, you can't get subsidies on the marketplace even if you think it's too expensive?

Great question about the Premium Tax Credit. You're right that employer coverage can affect PTC eligibility, but it depends on whether the employer coverage meets the "affordability" test. If the lowest-cost self-only plan offered by your employer costs more than 9.12% of your household income for 2025, then the coverage is considered "unaffordable" by IRS standards. In that case, you can still qualify for the PTC for marketplace coverage. Based on what the original poster said (that they still qualified for marketplace subsidies), it sounds like their employer coverage failed the affordability test.

Wait this sounds interesting - can it actually tell if my employer insurance was considered "affordable" according to IRS rules? My HR department is useless and I've been trying to figure this out for weeks.

Does this tool actually upload your tax docs or just answer questions? I'm worried about privacy with these online tax things after that TurboTax data breach last year.

The affordability calculation is definitely one of the features - you input your income and what the lowest-cost self-only plan would have cost, and it tells you if it meets the IRS affordability threshold (currently 9.12% of household income for 2025). Really helpful when HR departments can't give clear answers about the tax implications. For your question about privacy, the system is document-based so you do upload your forms, but they use bank-level encryption and don't store your docs after analysis. They explain their security measures pretty clearly on the site - I was hesitant at first too but felt comfortable after reading their privacy policy.

How does this actually work? Like they just wait on hold for you? Seems too good to be true honestly.

Yeah right. No way they can get through to the IRS faster than anyone else. The IRS phone system is completely broken - I don't believe any service could actually help with this.

They basically use an automated system to navigate the IRS phone tree and wait on hold for you. When they reach an agent, you get a call to connect with them. It's pretty simple but effective. As for whether it works better than calling yourself, all I can say is I tried calling on my own three times and never got through after hours of waiting. With their service I was connected in 20 minutes. They apparently have technology that keeps your place in line even if there are disconnections, which is a common problem with the IRS phone system.

But then why do they even give it to us if they already send it to the IRS? Seems like a waste of paper.

they give it to us because tax regulations require employers to provide employees with a copy. its basically just so you have documentation of what health insurance was offered to you during the year. like how you get a w-2 even though your employer also sends that info to the irs. its so you can verify the info is correct and have proof if theres ever a dispute about what was offered to you.

What's considered "affordable" though? My employer plan takes like 15% of my paycheck for terrible coverage with a $8000 deductible.

For 2025, employer coverage is considered "affordable" if the lowest-cost self-only plan is less than 9.12% of your household income. It doesn't matter if the coverage is terrible or has a high deductible - the IRS only looks at the premium cost for the employee (not family members) compared to your household income. So in your case, if the premiums really do take 15% of your income just for your own coverage (not including spouse/dependents), then your employer coverage would be considered "unaffordable" and you could qualify for Premium Tax Credits on the marketplace.