10 Sep IRS loosens employer mandate reporting requirements

Originally posted September 9, 2013 by Gillian Roberts on https://eba.benefitnews.com

In a follow-up to the Obama administration’s July 2 employer mandate delay, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Internal Revenue Service issued a proposed rule late last week that would make certain reporting requirements in the provision of the Affordable Care Act voluntary. According to a statement by the department, “The regulatory proposals reflect an ongoing dialogue with representatives of employers, insurers, other reporting entities, and individual taxpayers.”

The changes include:

• “Eliminating the need to determine whether particular employees are full-time if adequate coverage is offered to all potentially full-time employees.”
• “Replacing section 6056 employee statements with Form W-2 reporting on offers of employer-sponsored coverage to employees, spouses, and dependents.”
• “Limited reporting for certain self-insured employers offering no-cost coverage to employees and their families.”

“Today’s proposed rules enable us to continue engaging on how best to implement the ACA reporting requirements in a more streamlined and focused manner,” said Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy Mark J. Mazur in the statement.  “We will continue to consider ways, consistent with the law, to simplify the new information reporting process and bring about a smooth implementation of those new rules.”

The full statement can be found here and the full rule, with details to provide comments, can be found here.