Nearly 300,000 Nevadans eligible for health care tax cut

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KTNV - http://www.ktnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=13311470

Washington, D.C.--In Nevada, 287,400 people will be eligible for new tax cuts beginning in 2014 that will significantly reduce the cost of private health insurance for those individuals and families.

The historic tax cut in the health reform law, which is estimated to reduce nationwide income taxes by more than $110 billion in 2014 alone, will be provided through tax credits to offset a portion of the cost of health insurance premiums, and Nevadans' tax reductions will approximate $1.1 billion in that year.

Those are among the key findings of a report for Nevada released today by the health care consumer group, Families USA, which commissioned The Lewin Group to use its economic models to estimate how many individuals in the state would benefit from the new premium tax credits.

Titled "Lower Taxes, Lower Premiums: The New Health Insurance Tax Credit in Nevada," the report also states that the vast majority of Nevadans who will be eligible for the premiums tax credit--96 percent--will be in working families.

* Approximately 256,400 people--the majority of those who will be eligible for the credits--will be in families with a worker who is employed full-time.

* Another 20,000 people will be in families with a worker who is employed part-time.
The new tax credit targets middle-income families. For families of four, the tax credits--provided on a sliding scale--are focused on families with annual incomes between $29,327 and $88,200.

* People with annual incomes at or above 200 percent of the federal poverty level--$44,100 for a family of four in 2010--will constitute two-thirds (66 percent) of the people who will be eligible for a premium tax credit.

* Because the size of the tax credit is determined on a sliding scale based on income, however, more than half the dollars from the tax cut (56 percent) will be targeted to families with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty level.

"This is the largest middle-income tax cut in history, and it will enable many hard-working Nevadans to afford health insurance premiums that have stretched family budgets," said Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA.

"The tax cut will not only put significant extra cash in Nevadans' pocketbooks, but it will also ease the burden of families' growing health care costs," Pollack said.

There are about 143,200 uninsured Nevadans who will be eligible for the tax credits, and another 144,200 eligible people who are currently insured but are still struggling to afford coverage.

The report for Nevada with extended discussion of the eligibility program can be found on the Families USA website.

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