Employees
Reimbursement Arrangements
Let us take a moment to focus on the employee side of insurance. Lacking access to many of the professional research databases, many small businesses (including accounting firms) use Google as their main source of finding information. Sadly, this means that many fall prey to misadvise. Jeffrey Joyner, in his online article on small business health insurance states, that it is allowable for the employer to reimburse the employee for their health insurance premiums (Joyner J., 2016). However, IRC § 9831 (a)(2) states that if an S corporation maintains multiple arrangements for either shareholders or employees (and they are not covered by family coverage), the arrangements will qualify as a group health plan; and thus may eventually be subject to excise taxes under ACA market reforms. Mr. Joyner is partially correct; as long as the S corporation has only one participant in the plan, it is exempt under the “fewer than two participants who are current employees” IRS Notice 2015-17 exemption. Additionally, it is stated that employers that continue to reimburse individual plan payments, “after June 30, 2015… may be liable for the Code § 4980D excise tax” IRS Notice 2015-17.
Due to the misadvise contained in web-articles, many are under the impression that penalties will not be assessed until further guidance is released and until then it is permissible for a small corporation to continue on reimbursing multiple plans. However, there
Employer sponsored health insurance is a health policy chosen and purchased by the employer and is provided to qualified employees and their families. Employers usually shares the insurance premium with employers. Employee based health insurance started early as 1910. Before World War II, only a few Americans had health insurance, but it only covered the hospital room, board, and ancillary services. During the war, more employee-based health insurances were being given to employees due to frozen wages by the National War Labor Board worker shortage. Employers were figuring out a way to attract employees to work and stay in their company, which meant that providing health insurance was the best option. Offering health insurance drew attention to employees because unions supported this system and the benefits would not be subjected to income tax or social security taxes. Health
I was looking in my mirror at the red and blue flashing lights. My stomach dropped and I was scared about what was going to happen. I had already been pulled over twice in the last week, once for running a stop sign, the second for speeding. It’s about 1am and only that time because of the day light savings. It is now passed my curfew.
were already providing health insurance because we’re in a competitive market and that helps us to retain and recruit good employees,” the Sacramento-based small business owner said, . One benefit for small businesses are tax credits“For us it was just good business. But pretty quickly we saw that our firm could benefit from the law. What appealed to us about the ACA were the tax credits and other financial incentives” (Taylor, 3), “A tax credit is an amount of money a taxpayer is able to subtract from taxes owed to the government” (investopedia.com , 1). this is good because businesses that barely make any money don't have to pay much taxes and they can maybe get more popularity due to the money they are saving. This is one example of how the ACA helps Small Businesses since …“ObamaCare creates the Small Business Health Options Program or SHOP, a part of each State’s Health Insurance Marketplace, where small businesses with 50 full-time equivalent employees or fewer can shop for group health plans. Starting on November 15th, 2015 those with 100 full-timers or less can use the SHOP” (www.obamacarefacts.com ,2 ). Small businesses are not required to provide health insurance to their employees if they wish because “... the answer is no. Under the Affordable Care Act, businesses with fewer than 50 full-time equivalent employees are not required to provide health insurance to their employees, and those employers will not face tax penalties if they decide not to offer their employees health insurance” (resources.ehealthinsurance.com, 1).This is good that very small businesses have the freedom not to get insurance because some businesses need to save money because of the expensive previous health care. Despite it being affordable, ObamaCare has given the freedom for small businesses to not give healthcare to employees. “Since health insurance for small business isn’t mandatory under the ACA, small
The small business owner that has 25 or fewer employees, and provides health insurance for them, the owner will receive tax credits to ease the burden of the cost. The small business owner will receive 50% tax credit for a profit business and 35% tax credit for non-profit businesses.
For the purposes of the Affordable Care Act, any employer that has less than 50 employees is a small employer. There is no mandate for small employers to provide health insurance, however there are incentives available to make providing insurance easier and more affordable.
Under the ACA for individuals, they are able to select their health care coverage either through their employer, through the government, by finding a plan on their own, or have no insurance coverage at all and face the tax penalty, year after year that the taxpayer goes without coverage. There are actually ways that the individual can benefit from when filing their taxes. An option for selecting health care coverage is through the government’s website exchange, this is referenced to the Premium tax credit. Under this credit as defined in 26 C.F.R. § 1.36B-1 , individuals are able to select their own health care coverage with the plans being labeled as on silver, bronze, gold, or platinum plans, and gives the taxpayer a refund on the premium amount. If a taxpayer plans on selecting one of these, the government will give you a tax break if your income places you under the 400% of the poverty level (Obamacare, 2015). Under ACA, employers are now faced with a challenge of their own, if they have 50 or more employees they are now required to offer healthcare coverage to their full-time employees, and if they do not they will be faced to pay a tax penalty. With smaller employers they would be offered a tax break on offering their employees coverage through the government marketplace. Another way that the ACA changed the tax on other companies is
When the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, became a law, one of the requirements of that law was that large employers (Obamacare, 2015) i.e., an employer with fifty or greater employees must provide health care for their employees or face penalties (in year 2016 that penalty will be $3,000 per full time employee). In addition, individuals not covered by an employer provided health plan must pay for their own health insurance (HealthCare, 2015), or they will be penalized financially. As stated in (HealthCare, 2015), the penalty is calculated two different ways – as a percentage of your household income, and per person. You’ll pay whichever is higher.
The small business owner will be able to buy a health insurance for the employees. The small businesses will receive a tax credit for up to 50% of the cost the employees’ health insurance. The health insurance companies cannot reject coverage of pre-existing chronic illness, and the patients have right to appeal if an insurance companies refuse doctor ordered treatments (Morone, 2008).
Doctors deserve credit for doing what they are trained to do, not to mention that most doctors are dedicated to taking care of all American citizens and may be willing to take a pay cut to help insure Americans so they can continue to do the job the
The purpose of this report is to clarify how to account for a more than 2% shareholder S Corporation Owners’ Health insurance from a payroll perspective, in light of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace reforms. Additionally, for the small business S corporation; is it possible to assist employee’s with health insurance premiums without running afoul of marketplace reforms? The internet is rampant with conflicting advice on these seemingly simple questions. The most recent guidance from the IRS (notice 2015-17) is more of a reprieve on penalties, rather than guidance. Additionally, the June 30, 2015 deadline for reprieves has passed; which has accountants and taxpayers waiting for additional “guidance” while sorting out
(Fact Check Admin, 2015) Many of them lost the plans, because their plan did not meet all ten aspects mandated by the ACA. In turn their health care plans were replaced by high priced plans, but the replacement plans provided more benefits. Small businesses are feeling the crunch due to the ACA and are being forced to make a hard decision. Many of these businesses will find it more cost-effective to simply pay the penalty fine mandated by the ACA and allow their employees to find insurance through sponsored exchanges. Small businesses that conduct business in states that provide state-run exchanges, may find they get better plans through that avenue. (Non-partisan Congressional Budget office admin, 2012) As a penalty for not enrolling in a health care plan, those that do not will be charged extra on the taxes. An estimated 4 million people will pat this tax, which will total an estimated fifty four million in tax
In 1915, reformers issued the first major proposal for national health insurance in the United States. In 1929, the first current group health insurance plan was formed. Since that time, Americans have relied on private insurance to help protect their families. Across the nation health insurance has provided a level of comfort when a medical situation arises. Policyholders know that there will be reliable services as well as assistance with the costs. Since the passing of The Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, there has been agitation in Washington, and it continues to be a topic for arguments among Americans. Even though healthcare has always been a priority, an important part of our lives, the ACA, and its provisions are detrimental. The
Large corporations typically self-insure paying their employees' medical bills and hiring insurers to administer health benefits, while small businesses purchase group health coverage from insurers and face cost-increasing regulations as they go through the annual ritual of renewing their coverage. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) says that an employer must provide full-time employees with comprehensive health insurance for businesses that have over a certain number of employees. While businesses under a certain number of employees won't get penalized for not offering coverage. This is important because if you are a small business employee with very little take home, this gives you the option to allot that money for coverage or not. The cash value
Humana, Inc. is a health insurance company from Louisville, Kentucky that started in 1961 by Lawyers Wendell Cherry and David A. Jones, Sr. Humana started as a nursing home where it later become the largest nursing home company in the nation. After the nursing homes they soon began to purchase hospitals entirely for expansion. The name of the company changed to Humana, Inc. two years later. Cherry and Jones continued to expand by purchasing other companies. In 1984, the company began focusing on Health Insurance where it remains to focus on even today. Since 2014, Humana has had over 13 million customers and over 52,000, and a revenue of $41.3 billion that was reported in 2013.
A peril is something that can cause a loss. Examples include falling, crashing your car, fire, wind, hail, lightning, water, volcanic eruptions, choking, or falling objects.