Our dear friend, Ed Fensholt, over in Compliance recently brought a Business Insurance article to our attention. It talks about employer reporting under the Affordable Care Act. Below are a few of his comments about the article that I thought were too important not to share.
ACA is a big deal….first reports are due by the end of January next year (the article mistakenly suggests employers with at least 100 employees must report…it’s actually worse than that: employers who, in 2014, averaged at least 50 full-time employees in the corporate family tree, including fictional full-timers comprised of part-time hours, will have some reporting to do.
These reports include individual forms due to each full-time employee (and perhaps others), with a copy to the IRS…the forms are due from the employee’s employer, even if the health plan covering the employee is sponsored by someone else (like a parent, other affiliate, or even a union plan) or even if there’s no health plan offered to or covering the full-time employee at all!
According to the survey described in the article, 90 percent of mid-sized employers (fewer than 1,000 employees) don’t yet have an in-house or outsourced solution in place to track hours and submit the required reports. That’s troubling; because these solutions can’t be installed overnight…the implementation window will begin closing before summer fades to autumn!
16 percent haven’t even yet considered what they have to do or how they’re going to do it!
If you have not yet begun thinking about the ACA reporting requirements (or more to the point, haven’t been educated about the ACA reporting requirements), you are behind the curve, and in a few short weeks will be so far behind you won’t be able to catch up! (PS- There’s a chance the IRS will delay this reporting requirement, but if it does so, it’ll likely wait until the last minute…we all hope it happens, but it is folly to bank on that possibility).
As Ed mentioned, it is troubling that so many employers have yet to find a solution to track and report hours. Not only is the timeline for implementation dwindling, but the capacity of the vendors is also decreasing. Don’t wait any longer to seek out a solution, or you could end up in big trouble. Your procrastination could cost you big $$!
This post wasn’t meant to scare you, but ACA is a big deal, my friends. It doesn’t look to be going away and from the survey results you can see most employers haven’t begun to act on the requirements. Lockton’s Compliance and HR Technology & Outsourcing teams are more than happy to help educate you on the reporting requirements and processes and suggest some possible technology solutions. If you have any questions on ACA reporting or ACA technology, please give us a shout.
Here is a PDF copy of the Business Insurance article: Most employers unprepared