Obamacare (ACA) Ruled Unconstitutional in Texas, but This Fight is Far from Over
Uncharacteristically late on Friday evening December the 16th, a Texas U.S. District Court Judge (Reed O’Connor) held that the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional and should be entirely struck down. The basis of this argument is that the recent decision by Republican Congress to remove the tax penalty for people who do not have health insurance, now places the law in opposition to the constitution.
The decision is certain to be appealed. In fact, house leader Nancy Pelosi almost instantly challenged the decision and said that when Democrats take the house in January, they will certainly appeal. This is widely anticipated to lead to a very long legal battle between Democrats and Republicans.
In the meantime, the current ACA law stands. The white house released a formal statement reiterating just that. White house press secretary Sarah Sanders stated that, “Obamacare will remain in effect while the case is appealed”.
Most legal scholars believe that this case will ultimately be heard by the supreme court. Until then nothing will change with how our current healthcare system operates.
This means that Employers must still comply with the Employer Mandate. ACA Reporting is still required by law and employees must receive their forms 1095C no later than the extended deadline of March 4th 2019, for the 2018 reporting year.
IRS Deadline Extended 2019: Employers get extra time to distribute form 1095-C
The IRS has yet again extended the annual deadline for distributing form 1095-C for the 2018 tax year. The new deadline for form distribution to full time employees (required under the Affordable Care Act ACA) is March 4, 2019. This deadline was extended from the original due date of Jan 31, 2019 effectively giving large employers 32 additional days to comply.
On November 29th the IRS released notice 2018-94, which serves to extend the due date for certain 2018 information-reporting requirements for insurers, self-insuring employers, and certain other providers of minimum essential coverage under section 6055 of the Internal Revenue Code (Code) and for applicable large employers under section 6056 of the Code.
The notice specifically mentions that failure to comply with new due dates will result in penalties for Applicable Large Employers (ALEs). The notice states “Employers or other coverage providers that do not comply with the due dates for furnishing Forms 1095-B and 1095-C (as extended under the rules described above) or for filing Forms 1094-B, 1095-B, 1094-C, or 1095-C are subject to penalties under sections 6722 or 6721 for failure to timely furnish and file, respectively. However, employers and other coverage providers that do not meet the relevant due dates should still furnish and file.”
ACA Reporting Service is a leading full service vendor for ACA reporting since the inception of the law in 2014. We work directly with employers as well as partnering with HR firms, Staffing companies and many others needing an expert partner for backend fulfillment for their clientele. Reach out to our customer service team for more details at 888-978-8310 or email us: support@acareportingservice.com.
New Partnerships: SelfInsuredReporting.com
We are pleased to announce a strategic partnership with Self Insured Reporting to the benefit of our clients.
SelfInsuredReporting.com is a financial reporting and claim analytics system specifically designed for self insured employers. Their platform helps you quickly answer questions such as:
- How is our plan performing versus our budget for the year? How about our stop loss contract?
- What are the costs expected to be for the rest of the plan year? What is my expected renewal?
- How are the medical and pharmacy claims trending for each plan? What about network performance?
- How are claims trending for conditions such as cancer or diabetes?
- Which providers are the most expensive in an area?
- Are there opportunities to ‘drive’ services from one provider to a lower cost provider, such as from an emergency room to an urgent care facility?
Learn more at SelfInsuredReporting.com
IRS continues to lay the groundwork for 2016 ACA reporting penalties
By now, many employers have received penalty assessments (Letter 226J) for noncompliance with the employer mandate in the tax year 2015. These penalty letters where not issues until Nov 1st of 2017. However, U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) reports from this year show that the IRS is gearing up to begin issuing penalty letters for the 2016 tax year very soon.
At Sky Insurance Tech, we do a good deal of penalty consulting for prospective clients. These are almost always clients that did their reporting with a lower priced, sub-par vendor, if they did their reporting at all. Recently, we have been getting a ton of phone calls regarding letter 5699 from the IRS for the 2016 tax year.
Letter 5699 is what the IRS uses to inquire about an employer’s reason for not properly filing their forms 1094/1095C. Employers who receive this letter have 30 days to respond. If the employer cannot prove that the letter was sent in error, then there is serious consequence, including a letter 226J for the 2016 tax year.
The IRS didn’t issue 2015 letter 226J penalty assessments until November 1st of 2017. However, November 1st of 2018 is right around the corner, which is the time frame we are expecting to see the 2016 penalty letters released. It is also important to note that just because the 2016 notices are set to be issued, this does not mean that the 2015 notices are finished being distributed.
For these reasons we encourage employers to revisit their previous year’s filings. Make sure that these were both accurate and timely.
If assistance is needed with either previous reporting years, or with penalty notices from the IRS, we are here to help.