This is the first tax season that Americans have been through since the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Many citizens do not realize that not securing health insurance will result in a penalty on their federal income tax. To help ease the burden of those that did not understand this stipulation of the Affordable Care Act a special enrollment period is now underway.

Terry Tucker with the Health Insurance Store of Louisiana says this special enrollment is designed to take the surprise out the income tax penalty.

"People are now going to get their taxes done and they're realizing that they're getting penalties.  So anyone that realized that and did not know that they were going to get a penalty would qualify for this special enrollment period."

Not everyone qualifies for this special enrollment period and Tucker explained in a story published by the Louisiana Radio Network just who is eligible to take advantage of the extra time to enroll.

"No insurance for 2014, no insurance for 2015, and when you got your taxes prepared, you did not know that you were going to get a penalty."

Tucker says this enrollment period will be open until April 30th. He also suggested that those who have enrolled in the program already double check the status of their enrollment. His office is noticing many applications with missing documents or incomplete paperwork. This could result in a tax penalty if not corrected and resubmitted.

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