The next tax filing season will be the second for Form 8965. The federal government introduced the PPACA public exchange system and the PPACA premium tax credit subsidy program in January, and individual taxpayers began seeing and filling out PPACA-related tax forms earlier this year.

The IRS received fewer PPACA-related tax filings for 2014 than it expected, and some have speculated that consumer confusion about the forms, and overall inability to handle paperwork, may have contributed to compliance problems.

For the 8965 form's second year, the IRS is thinking of adding a small infographic at the top that summarizes three key points. The infographic informs taxpayers that: 

 For each month, you must either:

• • Have Health Coverage, or

  • claim a coverage exemption on Form 8965, or

  • make a shared responsibility payment.

Drafters have also tweaked the list of exemptions to reflect the end of some temporary mandate exemption options, such as use of employer coverage with non-calendar plan years beginning in 2013.

At the end of the instructions, the drafters have added a flowchart-like worksheet that taxpayers can use to figure their penalty payments.

The drafters tried to make the long columns of text in the original version of the instructions easier to understand by making each step in the new worksheet very short, and using white space to set each step apart from the others.

The first question is, "Can someone claim you as a dependent?"

In another new feature, a collection of advice on "How to avoid common mistakes," the IRS cites confusion about the effects of dependent status as a common penalty calculation problem.

"Make sure you can't be claimed as a dependent on another person's tax return," the IRS says in the new draft instructions. "You do not owe a shared responsibility payment if you can be claimed as a dependent by another taxpayer."