The Affordable Care Act
President Obama signed The Affordable Care Act into law on March 23, 2010. The goal of the Affordable Care Act was to provide health care for all Americans and to help control the growth in health care spending. In addition to health insurance reforms, the Affordable Care Act includes tax provisions that affect individuals, families, businesses, insurers, tax-exempt organizations and government entities. These new tax provisions impact health insurance provided by employers.
Provisions for All Employers
There are two new provisions of the Affordable Care Act that apply to employers of all sizes:
1. The Additional Medicare Tax requires employers to withhold .9% of wages in excess of $200,000. These funds help fund
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Self-insured employers must file an annual return which details the coverage that they offer to employees.
2. Self-insured employers pay a fee to fund the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund. To calculate this fee, multiply the number of lives covered times the policy fee. The current policy fee is $2.08. Plans that are limited in coverage, such a vision, dental, or employee assistance programs are exempt.
Small Employer Provisions
For the purposes of the Affordable Care Act, any employer that has less than 50 employees is a small employer. There is no mandate for small employers to provide health insurance, however there are incentives available to make providing insurance easier and more affordable.
Small Employers with less than 50 employees are eligible to buy insurance coverage through the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP.) This program allows small employers to have access to the plans on the health care exchange.
Certain small employers may also be eligible for the Small Business Healthcare Tax Credit. This credit is available for two consecutive tax years. In order to qualify for the credit the small employer must have:
1. Fewer than 25 Full-time Equivalent Employees (2 Part-time Employees = 1 Full-time
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Large employers must provide health care coverage as well has have additional reporting requirements.
Large Employers must file an annual return containing information about health coverage offered to employees and dependents. Employers must also provide the same information to employees.
Minimum Essential Coverage must be provided to full-time employees and their dependents that is affordable and provides minimum value. Dependents are an employee’s child who has not yet reached 26. Spouses, stepchildren, and foster children are not dependents for the Affordable Care Act.
If an employee of a large employer receives the premium tax credit, then the employer will be subject to a shared responsibility payment. There are two types of shared responsibility payments for large employers:
1. The employer does not offer minimum essential coverage to at least 95% of its full-time employees. The shared responsibility payment will be $2000 per full-time employee less the first 30. Payment will be due on all employees, even if they accepted minimum essential
were already providing health insurance because we’re in a competitive market and that helps us to retain and recruit good employees,” the Sacramento-based small business owner said, . One benefit for small businesses are tax credits“For us it was just good business. But pretty quickly we saw that our firm could benefit from the law. What appealed to us about the ACA were the tax credits and other financial incentives” (Taylor, 3), “A tax credit is an amount of money a taxpayer is able to subtract from taxes owed to the government” (investopedia.com , 1). this is good because businesses that barely make any money don't have to pay much taxes and they can maybe get more popularity due to the money they are saving. This is one example of how the ACA helps Small Businesses since …“ObamaCare creates the Small Business Health Options Program or SHOP, a part of each State’s Health Insurance Marketplace, where small businesses with 50 full-time equivalent employees or fewer can shop for group health plans. Starting on November 15th, 2015 those with 100 full-timers or less can use the SHOP” (www.obamacarefacts.com ,2 ). Small businesses are not required to provide health insurance to their employees if they wish because “... the answer is no. Under the Affordable Care Act, businesses with fewer than 50 full-time equivalent employees are not required to provide health insurance to their employees, and those employers will not face tax penalties if they decide not to offer their employees health insurance” (resources.ehealthinsurance.com, 1).This is good that very small businesses have the freedom not to get insurance because some businesses need to save money because of the expensive previous health care. Despite it being affordable, ObamaCare has given the freedom for small businesses to not give healthcare to employees. “Since health insurance for small business isn’t mandatory under the ACA, small
Employers should offer affordable( employee premium less than 9.5% of employee’s wages) and of minimum value( employers must pay at least 60% of insurance cost) healthcare benefits to their employees depending on factors like number of FTE, number of employees receiving premium tax credits and other complex measurements to calculate the amounts. Employers should also notify employees by written about State exchanges, and advise them that if an employee decides to purchase a health Plan through an exchange, they may lose the employers’
First, the act addresses major reforms to undertake in the health insurance sector to improve access to quality health care. The age of dependent coverage increased to 26 years, limits on annual benefits eliminated and challenges faced by those with preexisting medical conditions in getting a cover addressed. In addition, insurance documentation became uniform to allow for comparison (McClanahan, 2012). Thus, more Americans can access an insurance cover without increasing premiums.
The small business owner that has 25 or fewer employees, and provides health insurance for them, the owner will receive tax credits to ease the burden of the cost. The small business owner will receive 50% tax credit for a profit business and 35% tax credit for non-profit businesses.
As of September 23, 2012 or soon after, health insurance issuers and group health plans are required to provide you with an easy to understand summary about a health plan’s benefits and coverage. The new regulation is designed to help you better understand and evaluate
The Affordable Care Act (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), commonly called "Obamacare," is a federal statute that was signed into law in March of 2010 (PDF, n.d.; Van de Water, 2011). It basically requires the vast majority of people in the United States who do not have insurance coverage to acquire that coverage or face penalties. People who already have insurance through their employers or on their own will not be asked to change companies. Additionally, anyone who is on federally-funded insurance such as Medicaid or Medicare and still qualifies for those programs will not be removed from their insurance. They will still be covered and protected. In order to find out more about the Act and really understand its main points and principles, however, it is very important to be aware of how it became a law and any changes that have taken place to it from its inception all the way through where it is today. Only then can a person have a clear understanding of the Act and form an opinion as to the value it may (or may not) provide to the American public. There is still much speculation and a great deal of misunderstanding about the Act and what it involves.
This health reform will offer tax credits to about four million small business men and women to help cover the cost The Small Business Health
It was stated earlier in this paper that big businesses would benefit from this law; however, the exact opposite is true for small businesses. Businesses will be forced to provide healthcare for their employees or pay a fine, something they may not be able to afford. This may result in employees’ hours being cut or even the termination of the employee (“ObamaCare”).
The ACA requires insurers to accept all applicants, cover certain conditions, and charge the same rates despite one 's sex or pre-existing health status. There are ten provisions that make up the ACA which were to be implemented over time, from 2010 through 2020. The first provision is individual insurance, which prohibits insurers to deny coverage based on one 's pre existing health conditions. States were also required to make insurance available to children who are not insured through their families. Medicaid was also expanded to include individuals and families with an average income of thirty thousand dollars a year. This mandate will not cover those who are illegal immigrants, eligible individuals who choose to not be enrolled in medicaid, those who choose to pay the penalty, individuals whose insurance would cost more than 8% of their income, and those who live in states that opt out of the medicaid expansion.
All applicable large employers are required to file with the IRS relevant information returns and give provide statements about the available health coverage that each
The purpose of this report is to clarify how to account for a more than 2% shareholder S Corporation Owners’ Health insurance from a payroll perspective, in light of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace reforms. Additionally, for the small business
The soaring cost of healthcare coverage is forcing employers to look for alternative solutions. With its many benefits, partially self-funded healthcare plans are growing in popularity among small and medium size companies as they combat the rising costs.
2. According to this test, the number of non-General employees, not only highly compensated employees, but also benefit from a qualified plan. There are certain minimum coverage requirements that need to be well received by the tax treatment, and
All staff members will receive a contribution of $250 per month towards the cost of health insurance. All management level employees will receive a contribution of $400 per month towards the cost of health insurance. All Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants and Employed Physicians will receive a contribution of $426 per month towards the cost of their health insurance. There will be no exceptions to the contribution levels or amounts. The Company contribution cannot be paid as wages in lieu of healthcare. If you choose a plan which costs less than the Company is contributing towards your health insurance, you will not receive the difference in wages. The funds cannot be applied towards dental, vision, or other ancillary insurances if you choose not to enroll in health
Let us take a moment to focus on the employee side of insurance. Lacking access to many of the professional research databases, many small businesses (including accounting firms) use Google as their main source of finding information. Sadly, this means that many fall prey to misadvise. Jeffrey Joyner, in his online article on small business health insurance states, that it is allowable for the employer to reimburse the employee for their health insurance premiums (Joyner J., 2016). However, IRC § 9831 (a)(2) states that if an S corporation maintains multiple arrangements for either shareholders or employees (and they are not covered by family coverage), the arrangements will qualify as a group health plan; and thus may eventually be subject to excise taxes under ACA market reforms. Mr. Joyner is partially correct; as long as the S corporation has only one participant in the plan, it is exempt under the “fewer than two participants who are current employees” IRS Notice 2015-17 exemption. Additionally, it is stated that employers that continue to reimburse individual plan payments, “after June 30, 2015… may be liable for the Code § 4980D excise tax” IRS Notice 2015-17.