The federal Affordable Care Act, popularly called Obamacare, which was made to create universal healthcare in America, took effect Jan. 1 of this year; and now than 2014 is coming to an end, the new health care will also affect people’s tax returns.

Whether someone bought healthcare from a federal marketplace or not, there are issues to be taken into account at tax time, from reconciling the healthcare tax credit to calculating the penalties to knowing the penalty exceptions — and one local tax preparation company is offering free help to next week in navigating and understanding the tax effects of the new law.

“The Affordable Care Act is going to cross the tax road this year. As the leader in taxes, at H&R Block we’ve taken positive approach to this,” said Rick Hannafan, tax advisor 2 franchise associate with H&R Block in Cazenovia.

H&R Block will hold an Affordable Care Act Day on Thursday, Jan. 8, during which people may go to their office at 138 Albany St. and speak with ACA specialists (certified tax experts who have trained in how the ACA works and affects taxes). People will be asked to complete a short questionnaire that generate for them a free ACA tax impact analysis based on their responses — in short, the information will tell people how the ACA will approximately affect their tax return this year.

“Our goal with the ACA day is to educate as many people as we can as to how will it affect them; this is the single largest change to the tax code since 1987,” Hannafan said. “We’ve been talking this over with our clients for a couple of years, and what we feel this day will do is not only educate people, but also bring us new business.”

According to an ACA summary from Forbes.com, under the ACA, everyone is required to have health insurance coverage, and those that do not are subject to financial penalties; no one can be turned down for health care coverage because of existing illnesses or pre-existing conditions; and people who have difficulty affording coverage will get assistance paying for it unless they are under a certain poverty level.

There are multiple tax implications to the ACA that people will need help with this year, such as reconciling the advance tax credit received by people who purchased healthcare from a federal health care marketplace this year, as well as knowing not only the penalties for not having health care but also the exceptions to the penalties, Hannafan said.“It’s going to hit everybody. We’re trying to give a heads up to plan for this. Don’t let it run you over, be positive,” he said.

The H&R Block ACA day will run from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 8, at the H&R Block office on Albany Street. No appointment is necessary, and people do not need to be existing customers of H&R Block to attend. People should bring as much of their health care information with them as possible, particularly any information they have provided to a federal health exchange.

For more information on the ACA and its effect on taxes, visit hrblock.com/acataximpact or call the Cazenovia office at 655-2784.

Jason Emerson is editor of the Cazenovia Republican. He can be reached at [email protected].