Categories: Financial Services

A recent article in Bloomberg BNA's Health Insurance Report will be of interest to financial services employers: "ACA's Employer 'Pay or Play' Mandate Delayed - What Now for Employers?" by Frank C. Morris, Jr., and Adam C. Solander, colleagues of ours, based in Epstein Becker Green's Washington, DC, office.

Following is an excerpt:

The past few weeks have changed the way that most employers will prepare for the employer ‘‘shared responsibility'' provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Over the past year or so, employers have scrambled to understand their obligations with respect to the shared responsibility rules and implement system changes, oftentimes with imperfect information to guide their efforts to comply with ACA.

Understanding the difficulties that both employers and the health insurance exchanges or marketplaces would have, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on July 2 issued a press release stating it would delay the shared responsibility provisions and certain other reporting requirements for one year, until Jan. 1, 2015.

On July 9, the IRS published Notice 2013-45 (Notice), providing additional information on the one-year delay. Specifically, the following three ACA requirements are delayed:

  1. The employer shared responsibility provisions under Section 4980H of the Internal Revenue Code (Code), otherwise known as the employer mandate;
  2. Information reporting requirements under Section 6056 of the Code, which are linked to the employer mandate; and
  3. Information reporting requirements under Section 6055 of the Code, which apply to self-insuring employers, insurers, and certain other providers of ‘‘minimum essential coverage,'' as defined by ACA.

The IRS notice clarifies that only the above three requirements are delayed. The notice does not affect the effective date or application of other ACA provisions, such as the premium tax credit or the individual mandate. Given the fact that the law itself is not delayed, the notice has raised significant issues for employers despite their being generally pleased with the mandate and penalty delay. This article will discuss the impact of the delay and some of the issues that employers should consider as a result of the delay.

Click here to download the full article in PDF format.

The attached file is reproduced with permission from Health Insurance Report, 19 HPPR 28, 7/31/13. Copyright © 2013 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (800-372-1033) http://www.bna.com

Back to Workforce Bulletin Blog

Search This Blog

Blog Editors

Related Services

Topics

Archives

Jump to Page

Subscribe

Sign up to receive an email notification when new Workforce Bulletin posts are published:

Privacy Preference Center

When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

Performance Cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.