How do I file taxes and provide healthcare coverage for my son given our situation?
We live in TX. My son lives with his mom most of the time and with me the rest of the time. We were never married, our relationship grew sour after he was born, and so I filed for rights as a father and I pay child support and medical support as required by the court in order to get my time with him. My son is 8 now, his mom has claimed him on her taxes every year and is her right under TX law.
For several years I had insurance through various employers, and the most work I had to do was show the insurance companies the court order to justify them being his primary insurance coverage on years where his mom also maintained insurance coverage for him. I stopped working for my last employer and went self-employed last year and as such I selected insurance from the ACA marketplace.
To complicate matters, because I make a low enough income, my son qualified for Medicaid based on referral by the marketplace insurance application process whenever I signed up for coverage. This has been really helpful given that my son has Cystic Fibrosis and helps to cover a lot of medical costs that previously we were paying for out of pocket via deductibles and coinsurance costs.
The problem appears to be that market place insurance requires that I claim my son as a dependent on my taxes for him to be a dependent on my insurance, and that market place insurance has no definable way of allowing for insurance where coverage is mandated via court order for a dependent that does not live with you.
Now, it appears that if my son’s mom claims him again on her taxes, he is going to be dropped from Medicaid, and from my insurance, even though I have court ordered requirement to provide insurance.
The only solution I see to maintain his current coverage, is for his mother to allow me to claim him on my taxes as a dependent, but obviously that has financially negative repercussions for filing her taxes. Is there some option I am missing? How do I provide healthcare coverage for my son given our situation?
TLDR; How do I file taxes and provide health insurance per court order for a dependent when self-employed in TX?
submitted by /u/progamer76002
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