ACA Forms: What Your Recipients Should Know

If you’re a frequent flier of our Express tax products blogs, you might experience a little déjà vu when reading this one, because today we’re going to focus on what your employees and recipients should know about the Affordable Care Act information return forms. But bear with us, and we’ll try to spice things up for you as you re-review this information!

When we talk about the new ACA Forms 1094 and 1095, we tend to focus on the employers and the providers of health care coverage. Which makes sense: the responsibility of completing and filing these forms falls on them. But there’s a good chance that, at this point, your employees or recipients have asked you about what they need to know about the new ACA filing requirements.

The more you can do to educate your employees or recipients about Forms 1094 and 1095 and their purposes, the less likely you are to deal with confused and frustrated employees or clients. You may even want to consider sending out a notice or having a meeting to explain these forms and how they’ll affect your recipients.

Quick! Who makes the better detective, Sherlock Holmes or a tax accountant? The tax account: she makes more deductions.

Told ya we’d try to spice things up for you (winky-face emoticon).

Anyway, your employees should know that the ACA requires all employers with 50 or more full-time employees are required to provide affordable health coverage to their employees. These employers and other providers of minimum essential health care coverage will send out a Form 1095 (either B or C) to recipients to provide information about this coverage each January, around the same time they receive their W-2 or 1099s. This form indicates that they had health care coverage for all 12 months, unless they declined enrollment or an error has been made. Let your recipients know who they should contact if an error has been made on their 1095 form. Make sure that if an error does occur, your recipient’s form is updated along with the copy that is transmitted to the IRS.

You can stress the importance of the ACA forms without stressing out your employees or your clients. Make sure there’s someone they can come to who can answer questions about their forms.

And if you need any help with the ACA forms - or keeping stress-free when you file them - don’t hesitate to reach out to us. ExpressACAForms is here for you every step of the way: just give us a call at (704) 839-2270, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; live chat us through our website; or send us an email 24/7 at support@expressirsforms.com!