Determining Employee Affordability

One of the main provisions of the Affordable Care Act is that it requires the health insurance taxpayers have to be affordable. It should go without saying, then, that the health insurance you provide as an employer must be affordable to your employees.

But, as always, the IRS is going to spell it out for us anyways.

In order to be considered “affordable” under the employer shared responsibility provisions, the employee’s share should cost no more than 9.5% of their annual household income.

Since you’re not likely to know the entire household income of all of your employees, the IRS has come up with three safe harbor techniques to determine whether or not the coverage you offer is affordable.

Keep in mind that you can choose to use one or more of the safe harbors for all of your employees, but you must do so on a consistent basis for all of your employees.

The Form W-2 Wages Safe Harbor
This form of safe harbor bases affordability on whether or not the employee’s cost of the lowest-cost, self-only coverage exceeds 9.5% of the calendar year wages reported in Box 1 on Form W-2.

The Rate of Pay Safe Harbor
The rate of pay safe harbor involves a bit more math: coverage for an hourly employee is affordable if the employee’s contribution for the calendar month does not exceed 9.5% of an amount equal to 130 hours times the lower of

• The employee’s hourly rate of pay on the first day of the coverage OR
• The employee’s lowest hourly rate of pay during the calendar month.

The Federal Poverty Line Safe Harbor
With the FPL safe harbor, for coverage to be considered affordable, the employee’s contribution cannot exceed 9.5% of the Federal Poverty Line for the calendar year divided by 12.



Once you’ve determined your employee affordability, it’s important to have a plan put in place to report that coverage to the IRS! And one of the easiest, most secure ways to do that is with ExpressACAForms! We’re a full-service, IRS-authorized e-file provider, which means we handle creating your forms and e-filing them once you’ve approved them. Give us a call today or sign up on our website to get started.

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ACA Recipient Deadline Extended

But that doesn’t mean you should delay your filing!

Yes, it’s true that the IRS has extended the deadlines for the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) forms. And recipient forms, which would normally be due in less than a week (on January 31), now need to be in the hands of your employees or insurance recipients by March 31, 2016.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that the people you send a Form 1095-B or 1095-C to need this form to complete their 1099 or W-2 when filing their individual tax returns. So while your filing procrastinators may not care if you wait until the last minute to send out your forms, your recipients who want to go ahead and file won’t be able to until they receive their Form 1095.

So you can wait until the last minute to file, just know you may have some disgruntled employees if they don’t get their form until March 31 when their deadline is April 15.

Of course, the easiest way to get your copies to your recipients is to e-file with ExpressACAForms. Instead of having to print and mail (or hand out) your forms yourself, let us do it for you. Before you check out and transmit, select the Postal Mailing option. Then, in addition to federally e-filing your forms, a dedicated member of our team will send out your recipient forms within 1-2 business days.

Filing your ACA forms doesn’t have to be a long, complicated process. And with ExpressACAForms, you’ll feel like an expert in no time at all -- the same amount of time it’ll take to e-file your forms through our program!

If you have any questions while you’re filing, or need some help transmitting, feel free to get in touch with our friendly customer service team. We’re available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST, by phone (704-839-2270) and live chat; and we also offer 24/7 support through email at support@expressirsforms.com.

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More on the Affordable Care Act

As often as we’ve talked about the IRS ACA Forms 1095-B and 1095-C, we haven’t gone too in depth on the actual Affordable Care Act itself. So while we can’t go super in depth on the legislature in just one post (there’s a lot - the condensed version is 1000 pages long), we can give you a quick overview of how the Act has affected America’s healthcare laws.

In a sentence, the ACA was written to attempt to reform the healthcare system by providing more Americans with affordable, quality health insurance and by curbing the growth in healthcare spending. Keep in mind, though, that healthcare reform doesn’t begin and end with the Act itself. In most cases, the law gives power to ongoing efforts by Health and Human Services and other government programs to reform health care.

Under the Affordable Care Act:

• All Americans with health insurance are privy to new benefits, rights, and protections which ensure that they get treatment when they need it.
• Insurance is more affordable. By reducing premium and out-of-pocket costs for millions of families and small business owners, over 32 million Americans who couldn’t afford health care before now can.
• Risk is spread equally to end insurance discrimination. This means you can no longer be charged more based on gender, health status, or age.
• A new competitive health insurance marketplace was set up, giving Americans access to group buying power. This also allows Americans to compare plans and receive cost assistance.
• The budget and economy are put on a more stable path. By cutting government overspending and reining in waste, fraud, and abuse in the healthcare industry, it’s predicted the deficit will be reduced by more than $100 billion over the next ten years, and more than $1 trillion over the second decade.

Nothing in the ACA forces any American to have healthcare or to drop their current healthcare plan, assuming that plan complies with the ACA.

For a more information on the Act, check out this post from Obamacare Facts that goes into each Title of the ACA in more detail. Or, you can read the Act itself, but it’s not exactly light reading.

And for more information on e-filing your ACA forms, give us a call! We’re available by phone (704-839-2270) and live chat Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST. We also offer 24/7 email support at support@expressirsforms.com.

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What You Need to Know for Form 1095

With 2015 winding to an end, it may feel like the time you have to prepare yourself for the new Affordable Care Act forms is rapidly swirling down the drain. And it kind of is, but that’s okay! That’s why ExpressACAForms is here to help, with an explanation! After all, a great way to prepare yourself for the task at hand is with as much information as you can get.

So, exactly what information do you need before you dive head first into these forms?

Form 1095-B, Health Coverage
Form 1095-B is filed by every person who provides at least the minimum essential coverage (MEC) of health insurance to an individual during a calendar year. To complete this form, you will need the following information:

• the complete name, EIN, address, telephone number, and contact information of the filer (that’s you),
• the total number of Forms 1095-B that you’re filing,
• the complete name, SSN or date of birth, and address of each recipient,
• what type of coverage was offered to your recipients broken down by month, and
• if you’re reporting Employer Sponsored Coverage or coverage provided by another issuer, you’ll need their name, EIN, address, and contact information.

Form 1095-C, Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage
Form 1095-C is completed by Applicable Large Employers (ALEs), or employers with 50 or more full-time employees in a calendar year. These ALEs are required under the ACA to offer MEC of health insurance to their full-time employees. A representative of an ALE will complete this form with the following information:

• the name, SSN, and complete address of the employee,
• the name, EIN, complete address, and contact number of the employer,
• the Plan Start Month for the specific employee,
• the Offer of Coverage code applicable to this employee,
• the amount of the Employee Share of Lowest Cost Monthly Premium per month,
• the names and SSNs or birth dates for all covered individuals (spouse, dependents, etc.) and the months in which they were covered,
• and, if applicable, a Section 4980H Safe Harbor code.

Form 1094, Transmittal Form
In case you’ve heard of a Form 1094 and are wondering why we haven’t mentioned that yet in this post, it’s because that form is only used when paper filing. Form 1094-B or 1094-C essentially acts as a cover sheet and summary of the included 1095 forms. When you e-file, this form isn’t necessary.

So file with ExpressACAForms: you’ll be filing a few less forms! We’ve also got outstanding customer support waiting to help you through these new forms. Give us a call at (704) 829-2270 or send us a live chat Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST. Need help outside of those hours? We also offer 24/7 email support through support@expressirsforms.com.

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The Adventures of Ace: The Holiday Giving Caper

Once upon a December - this one, in fact - Ace, the World’s First E-Filing Superhero, was scrounging about the aisles of his local toy store while simultaneously explaining to the harried store owner why he always shopped small businesses, especially around the holidays.

“Backbone of America, you folks are. Why, if I had a dollar for every time I was able to find the precise thing I needed… Ah! There it is!”

“You see,” Ace explained to the store owner, “I saw on the ExpressTaxExempt Twitter that this past Tuesday was Giving Tuesday and I just don’t feel I gave enough. Imagine me, a superhero, not giving enough?! I could hardly call myself super then. I mean, why not just turn in my spandex at that point?”

“Okay, well here’s your receipt, uhh,” the store owner attempted to interject.

“Ace! My name is Ace! And I have come to this town to rid it of the evil Confusion! You see, it all began in the Dark Ages when a period of intellectual darkness overtook--”

“Ace! Thank you! Your receipt!” The store owner successfully interjected, keeping Ace from beginning another “explanation.”

“Someone’s in trouble! Confusion! She’s near! Shopkeep, hold these bags for me. This shouldn’t take long.”

Through the snowy streets Ace flew, listening intently for the sounds of Confusion’s evil spell. He soon found that the source of the noise seemed to be coming from the post office, and quietly crept in to assess the situation.

“Hmm,” whispered Ace to himself. “A patron of this postal establishment seems to be causing quite a disturbance with the postmaster. This must be the work of Confusion!”

“Don’t you see?” The patron pleaded with the postmaster. “I have a very large business and in January I’m going to have to send out thousands of these dumb Affordable Care Act forms to my employees AND the IRS so I need literally all of the stamps you have, and I’m not leaving until I get them!”

“Sir, as I’ve tried to explain, I can’t sell you all of my stamps! This is one of our busiest seasons, I’ve got to consider our other customers!”

“Huh?” The postmaster and patron said in response.

“You see, I’m the world’s first e-filing superhero, and I think I may be of some assistance. My arch-nemesis Confusion has obviously been here, but fear not! I know just how to handle this!”

“You’re gonna make him give me all his stamps?”

“No, silly patron. I’m going to tell you about ExpressACAForms, the simple and fast way to file your Affordable Care Act forms without having to visit a post or IRS office! Now, did I hear correctly that you have thousands of these forms to file?”

“Yes, so I need to start mailing them now if I’m ever going to get them to my employees and the IRS by the due date!”

“Well, first of all, if you have more than 250 forms to file, the IRS requires you e-file with them, so now there’s no need to worry about mailing those. Secondly, ExpressACAForms has an easy-to-use Bulk Upload feature, so even though you have thousands of forms to complete, you won’t have to fill them out individually.”

“But what about my employees?”

“I’m getting to it!” Ace exploded. “Excuse me, I do so hate to be interrupted. Anyway, as I was going to say, you can print and mail your forms to your employees yourself with ExpressACAForms, but they also give you the opportunity to save the forms and email them instead. Or, for a postage fee, you can have the people at ExpressACAForms mail your forms to your employees for you!”

“Now that my work here is done,” Ace said as he flew away, “it’s time to go get those toys. And then I can get some canned goods! Oooh and I’ll cash in my savings account! Hooray Giving Tuesday!”

For any help Ace wasn’t able to provide, you can always get in touch with the ExpressACAForms support team. Located in downtown Rock Hill, South Carolina, we’re available by phone, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST, at (704) 839-2270. We also offer live chat through our website and 24/7 email support at support@expressirsforms.com.

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