Paying back the Advance Premium Tax Credit?

My boyfriend is an insurance salesman licensed in health, auto, home, and life, but I don't think he understands how the Advance Premium Tax Credit works. His employer doesn't offer health insurance, so everyone he knows is trying to get him to sign up for a plan through the Marketplace. He has looked into it and it says he is estimated to get over $200 per month in APTC.

He signed up for a Marketplace plan for one year in the past (probably 2018 or so) and said that he had to pay all of his APTC back when tax season came, so he never wants to use Marketplace again. He believes that the credit is only an advance on his refund that is always owed back, and it will either lower his refund amount or cause him to owe something instead.

I found sources explaining that it only has to be paid back if the annual income originally estimated is too low. So once he files taxes with his actual income and if he didn’t end up qualifying for that much of a credit (made more than originally estimated), that is the only time he would have to pay it back. I'm almost sure his estimation was wrong back in 2018 and that's why he had to pay. (I'm assuming this because I know he had some trouble with the IRS in 2017 for getting impatient and filing his taxes before he had received all of his documents. He estimated something incorrectly enough that they looked into it and made him pay the correct amount later.)

He thinks I don't understand any of this because I don't work in insurance and just keeps saying, "This is where I'm licensed, I know how it works." I can tell he’s getting very frustrated, so I stopped trying to send him things before it turned into a bigger fight. Maybe he is right and I just don’t understand the wording. Can anyone help explain the APTC? Thank you!

submitted by /u/madisondynasty
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