Final Regs on Health Care Reform Large Employer Penalties Include New Transition Relief Easing Employers Into Compliance
Nancy K. Campbell • February 26, 2014
The IRS issued final regulations implementing the employer shared responsibility penalties on February 12, 2014. As promised in an earlier post, I have updated our Checklist for Employers to reflect the final regulations. Although the Checklist explains many of the transition rules, below is a summary of what I think are two of the most important new rules:
- Transition relief for employers with 50-99 employees in 2014 : The large employer penalties will generally apply to employers with 100 or more full-time employees starting in 2015 and employers with 50 or more full-time employees starting in 2016. This new rule is great news for employers with 50-99 employees in 2014. Employers must meet very detailed requirements to qualify for this one-year delay, including certifying that they have not laid-off employees to drop below the 100 employee threshold. See pages 3 to 4 of the Checklist for Employers for more information about this new rule.
- Substantially all normally means 95% but means 70% for 2015 : To avoid a payment for failing to offer health coverage, large employers need to offer coverage to substantially all of their full-time employees and their dependents. In 2015 “substantially all” means 70% and in 2016 and beyond it means 95%. The proposed regulations used a 95% test, so I was pretty happy to see a 70% test in the final regulations. Reducing the coverage standard to 70% for 2015 will make it much easier to avoid the subsection (a) penalty in 2015, but employers should recognize that not offering coverage to some full-time employees could result in having to pay a subsection (b) penalty with respect to full-time employees who receive a premium tax credit to help pay for coverage through a Marketplace.
For more information on these rules, please see my Checklist for Employers , the final regulations , and the IRS Questions and Answers on Employer Shared Responsibility Provisions Under the Affordable Care Act. Next week I plan to post about the key transition rules from the proposed regulations that the final regulations extended to 2015.
Employee burnout has become an epidemic in today’s modern workplace. So much so that the World Health Organization (WHO) officially recognizes it as an “occupational phenomenon.”1
While many used to consider mounting workplace stress an individual employee problem, these days, it’s become an employer’s responsibility to prevent burnout before it hurts productivity and business performance—not to mention your employees’ physical and mental health.
Luckily, you can prevent burnout from affecting your workforce in several ways. This article will explore the causes and signs of employee burnout and the steps you can take to create a positive work environment where employees feel safe from toxic stress levels.
If you're a small business owner, you may have heard of the acronym PCORI and the fees that come with it. But what is PCORI, and how does it apply to your organization?
Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), sponsors of self-insured health plans must pay a fee to fund the federal Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). PCORI is an independent organization the ACA created to conduct research to help healthcare consumers make better decisions for their specific needs and outcomes. It also performs research related to clinical effectiveness.
Employers offering a self-insured medical reimbursement health plan, such as a health reimbursement arrangement (HRA), must pay this fee by July 31 each year via Form 7201. This fee was initially set to expire in 2019, but Congress extended it through September 30, 20292, due to the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 20203.
