Anywhere from 3 million to 6 million Americans will be penalized for not getting health insurance in 2014, the Treasury Department announced on Wednesday.
The tax penalties are meant to encourage participation in Obamacare, and can be from $95 to $12,240, or 1 percent of income. Between 2 percent and 4 percent of all taxpayers will be penalized, reported Bloomberg.
Taxpayers are fined "because they made a choice not to obtain health insurance that they could have afforded, and they're not eligible for one of the exemptions," Mike Mazur, assistant secretary for tax policy at the IRS told reporters, according to Bloomberg.
Nearly three-quarters of the 150 million taxpayers already have health insurance through work or government programs and will only have to check a box on the federal income tax Form 1040 - Line 61 - which asks if the taxpayer has health insurance, according to CNN.
As many as 30 million will claim an exemption on their taxes this year by filing Form 8965, allowing them to avoid any Obamacare fines.
Some who may qualify for hardship exemptions include undocumented immigrants, the homeless, those who received medicaid rejection letters, faced eviction, or those who experienced other "hardships in obtaining healthcare," according to Healthcare.gov.
Those who underestimated their income to the Obamacare exchange will either owe the IRS money or receive smaller tax refunds, but Treasury Department officials would not say how many citizens fall in this category, according to CNN.
The nation's largest tax preparation company, H&R Block, estimates about 3.4 million taxpayers will be required to repay portions of their premiums.
Some who overestimated their income could get a larger refund than expected.
H&R recently warned that the newly released Obamacare tax code is so complicated that millions of taxpayers are likely to be confused.
"Now that the Affordable Care Act has made health care a tax issue, no one can understand it," the company said in a video on their webpage dedicated to Obamacare.
Tax filing for 2014 began on Jan. 20 and the IRS has been gearing up for a massive help queries, warning that as many as half the people who attempt to call its toll-free service phone number won't be able to reach a human, according to Bloomberg.
