Small employers - i.e., employers who are not applicable large employers (ALEs) -who reimburse or pay a premium for an individual health insurance policy for an employee should be aware that they may be subject to a $100 per day ($36,500 per year), per employee excise tax. Transition relief from the
The US Department of Labor recently released a report “Assessing the Quality of Employee Benefit Plan Audits.” In the report the EBSA (Employee Benefits Security Administration) revealed “serious issues with the current system.” According to Phyllis C. Borzi Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employee Benefits Security “The existing patchwork of regulations
The majority of employers have not yet implemented a strategy to comply with new reporting requirements under the Federal health care reform law that took effect earlier this year. According to a recent survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Equifax Inc. only 10% of 480 employers surveyed indicated that they already
Insightful article by Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, providing information about the Anthem cyber-attack and what employers should do. On Feb. 4, Anthem announced a data breach involving the personal information of more than 80 million individuals resulting from what it characterized as a sophisticated, targeted cyber-attack. Group health plans may be affected because Anthem:
One of the most important issues on the mind of business owners is the Affordable Care Act and its Employer Shared Responsibility provision. Due to the implementation timeline of the ACA and some of the delays to provisions like ESR, there is a lot of confusion among those in the
On July 24, 2014, the IRS posted preliminary, unofficial drafts of forms that the ACA compels employers, plan administrators and employees to file, among other items, to certify coverages offered and provided to employees in 2015. They are Form 1094-B (“Transmittal of Health Coverage Information Returns”), Form 1094-C (“Transmittal of Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage Information Returns”), Form
The IRS has threatened employers with ACA penalties of $100 per day, per employee, and non deductible or $36,500 per employee. This makes those $2,000 and $3,000 penalties look diminutive. Employers who maintain a "non-integrated" employer payment plans would be subject to these penalties. These would include HRAs, excluding retiree-only
Compliance with the Affordable Care Act just got a little more demanding for employers – determining which of your employees are full-time and which are not is now a major portion of the final Affordable Care Act regulations published February 2014 in the Federal Register. In order to determine whether an
Earlier this year, the agencies implementing the Affordable Care Act published a final rule that prohibits health plans and health insurers from applying any waiting period that exceeds 90 days (i.e., the waiting period that must pass before an individual is eligible to receive benefits under a health plan). In California
Covered CA announced late on March 31st that due to Record-setting numbers of people trying to sign up for Covered California™ health insurance plans overwhelmed the system on the final day of open enrollment, prompting the exchange to allow consumers who had trouble enrolling by the deadline to work with a