HSA/health insurance tomfoolery

Taxes
1

I just wanted to double-check to see if what I was thinking of doing is allowed.

I’m currently on a low-deductible health plan, and thus have no HSA.

I’m getting married at the end of the month, which I believe makes me eligible to make changes to my health insurance as a qualifying event. So I figured I can switch, and max out my HSA quickly. Based on google searching, my spouse can join on to the HSA and we can contribute twice as much.

Based on recent events, it looks like I’m very likely to change jobs soon after that. The new job does NOT have an HSA.

I’m not sure if there’s any requirement on how long you need to have a qualifying HDHP to contribute to your HSA. I couldn’t find anything saying there was a minimum amount of time.

So I’m just trying to make sure the following is a legitimate strategy:

  • Get married, in qualifying event get spouse and I on current employer’s HDHP, max out HSA.
  • Change jobs, in qualifying event of losing health insurance switch to spouse’s HDHP that does not have an HSA, or switch just spouse to that & get my own insurance in new job.
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Hi Greywald,

The way I understand it, if you are eligible for an HSA on Dec. 31st 2018 then you can contribute the full amount but some of it might be taxable/have penalties. If you become eligible in the middle of the year then you can only contribute $3500/n where n = the number of months you are eligible. :frowning:

Check out the flow chart on the form 8889 instructions which much be completed for each month: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8889.pdf
And the ‘limit on contribution’ section on the IRS website: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p969#en_US_2018_publink1000204058

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Aw, that’s disappointing. No tax savings for meeee.

Thanks for letting me know! That will at least reduce the complication of the whole process.

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Keeping all of this in mind, because this is relevant to me if I ever switch jobs (I currently have an HSA).

5

Related question:

If we become ineligible in 2 weeks, (yay for new job) and we’ve been contributing equal amounts on track to max, are we ok then?

I sure hope so.

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Oh nice, thanks for the heads-up about this. My wife’s about to switch jobs in Sept 1st; looks like we should just stick with an HSA for the last 3 months and then figure out which health care plan we actually want at the new job after Dec 1st.

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Piggying-back on this HSA thread: my primary insurance is a HDHP, but if I also enroll for a secondary insurance that isn’t HDHP-eligible, can I still contribute to an HSA or no?

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