By: Patrick Ouellete, Esq. The Employer Shared Responsibility Provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) continues to serve as a polarizing topic among employers and ACA supporters as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) moves forward with its compliance efforts. Regardless of disposition, however, applicable large employers (ALEs) should take note of IRS enforcement trends to date in 2018.
Employers that have 50 or more full-time equivalent employees must offer coverage that meets minimum value and affordability standards, as defined by the ACA. Those that do not meet these reporting requirements (also called the Employer Mandate) are to be assessed penalties by the IRS.
Each Employer Shared Responsibility Payment (ESRP), or tax penalty, is assessed based on whether an ALE offered minimum essential coverage to at least 95 percent of its full-time employees (and their dependents) and the number of employees who were offered (or not offered) coverage. An ALE member that owes the payment of $2,000 for each full-time employee (after excluding the first 30 full-time employees) would pay $166.67 monthly (i.e. 1/12 of $2,000) per month per full-time employee. The $2,000 amount is indexed for inflation:
The Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation estimated back in 2014 that penalty payments by employers would total $139 billion from 2015 to 2024. It will bear watching whether those numbers come to fruition. The IRS noted in a November 2017 FAQ that non-compliant ALEs would retroactively be assessed employer shared responsibility payments that have accrued dating back to 2015. Following through with its promise, the IRS has already begun to send out IRS Letter 226J notices to employers to notify them of ESRP liabilities relating to ACA information filings for the 2015 tax year. The IRS provided a FAQ to ALE recipients in January 2018 as to how to understand and respond to these letters, which may be a good start for those unfamiliar with Employer Mandate and ESRP regulations.
These recent IRS sample letters and FAQs reinforce the reality that employer responsibilities related to the ACA’s Employer Mandate do not appear to be going away any time soon. ALEs would be wise to have their proverbial documentation ducks in a row in the instance they receive an IRS Letter 226J notice. Employer groups in the self-funded health insurance industry should to stay up to date on IRS announcements to best understand the agency’s enforcement plans. It is incumbent upon these groups to review its applicable Forms 1094-C and 1095-C documentation and have a potential response strategy in place.