Questions - HSA and federal tax payment

[makincaid]

I wanted to get some thoughts/advice  with regards to the ACA estimator and federal tax payments.

Since I don't really know what my income will be next year, I prefer to wait and claim any ACA rebate on my taxes. ON the healthcare.gov form there is option "Continue without checking for savings options." which does not require me to include an estimated income amount. Has anyone else chosen this option. Do you know any downside to doing this?

My second question is, I just rolled over money from my Traditional IRA to my Roth IRA in order to generate income for 2021. Calculating my GA tax and sending in a payment was easy. However, I am not too sure what to do about the Federal payment. Theoretically, my ACA rebate will offset the taxes owed. Anyone have any experience with this? Any thoughts on whether it is best to send in an extra federal payment and how to calculate the payment?

[secondcor521]

I don't use healthcare.gov because my state has its own exchange.  But based on how my state exchange works and my understanding of the ACA in general, I'm fairly confident that the reason it's asking you for estimated income is so it can calculate APTC.  So if you're OK foregoing APTC, I think it would be fine to choose that option.

Well, except for CSRs.  If you plan to get a Silver plan and CSRs would be valuable to you, the only way to get them is to provide an estimated income to the marketplace when choosing a plan.

The proper way to determine whether or not and how much of an estimated payment to send in is done with estimated tax payment calculations.  A good place to start is at the IRS web page here:

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/estimated-taxes

Especially the sections on who must pay estimated taxes and how to figure estimated taxes.

If you're getting an additional PTC on Form 8962 when you do a pro forma estimate of your 2021 taxes, that would become a refundable credit and is essentially treated as an additional tax payment.  It would go on line 11b of the Form 1040-ES worksheet.

It is good to make estimated tax payments if you would otherwise owe an underpayment penalty.  If you elect to make an estimated payment, it would be a 4th quarter payment and would be due by 1/18/2022.