That number well exceeds officials’ original projections that up to 6 million households would be subject to the tax. That number also exceeds IRS projections from last week that pegged the total number of taxpayers who paid a penalty at 6.6 million.
The average penalty paid was about $200 per person, the National Taxpayer Advocate, the in-house ombudsman of the Internal Revenue Service, said in a report from last week.
According to CNBC, the IRS collected a total of $1.5 billion for the penalties, although 85 percent of people who paid the fines ended up with a net tax refund from the IRS.
About 300,000 people who paid the penalty likely qualified for an exemption from having to have health coverage, though about 12 million claimed an exemption to have coverage, federal officials said, according to CNBC.
Another 5.1 million people failed to state they had health coverage, claim an exemption, or say they had paid the fine, officials said, according to the report. The IRS is now “analyzing these cases to determine their status,” according to a letter officials sent Congress, which is cited by CNBC.
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