Andy Powers-A Professional who cares..About YOU!
EMPLOYER MANDATE
In 2015 companies with 100 or more full-time-equivalent employees must offer health coverage to full-timers or pay a tax. Full-timers are those employed at least 30 hours a week on average, but there's a good chance this number will be raised. Starting in 2016, firms with 50 to 99 full-time-equivalent workers will be subject to the pay-or-play rules, and the coverage offer will be expanded to dependents, including kids under age 26.
The fines for noncompliance are stiff. One hits firms that fail to offer coverage to at least 70% of full-time workers in 2015 if even one full-timer opts to buy insurance through a government exchange and receives a tax credit to subsidize the premium. For this year, the fine is $2,084 times the number of full-timers employed, less 80. Next year, the penalty is much stiffer. The required coverage jumps from 70% to 95% of full-time employees, and only 30 full-timers are disregarded when figuring the tax.
Another hits companies whose insurance is unaffordable. They'll owe a tax equal to $3,126 for each full-timer who gets a tax credit for purchasing coverage on an exchange. Coverage is treated as affordable if the required premium contribution from an employee for self-only coverage doesn't exceed 9.56% of the workers' wages. To pass muster, the employer's health plan must also provide "minimum value," meaning that it must pay at least 60% of the costs of covered health services.
Starting in January 2016, firms with 50 or more full-time-equivalent employees must report 2015 insurance data for each full-timer to the Service and the worker on Form 1095-C. Reporting for 2014 is voluntary. The agency says it won't delay implementing this reporting requirement, which IRS needs to help enforce the individual mandate against folks without coverage. Large employers must start preparing now for this new reporting obligation.
The individual mandate's fine for going without insurance is higher in 2015. The tax is typically the greater of two amounts: The basic fine or an income-based levy. The basic fine is soaring to $325 a person ($162.50 for each family member under 18), with a ceiling of $975...up $230 and $690, respectively. And the income-based levy doubles to 2% of the excess of household income over the tax return filing threshold.
The income levels to qualify for the health premium credit also increase. The credit is available only to those with household incomes between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level: $11,670 to $46,680 for singles and $23,850 to $95,400 for a family of four. Folks eligible for Medicaid or other federal insurance don't qualify