Form 1095-C Information Requirements

Form 1095-C is a pretty important form. It’s the form that all Applicable Large Employers (ALEs) use to report the health care coverage they offer their full-time employees each year.

So before you sit down to complete these important forms, you need to be sure to have all the information required. A lot of the data you’ll need can be gotten easily from your current payroll system but you’ll also be required to supply data on the coverage you offered each of your full-time employees.




To help get you prepared, here’s a list that breaks down all the information you need to complete Form 1095-C:

• Employee data. For each employee, you’ll need to have their
• Name,
• Social security number, and
• Address
• Applicable Large Employer data. That’s you. You’ll need your business’s
• Name
• Employer Identification Number (EIN)
• Address, and
• Telephone number
• Offer of coverage information. This is the part where you tell about the (at least) minimum essential coverage you offered your full-time employees. You’ll need
• The plan start month,
• An offer of coverage code for each month that identifies the type of coverage offered,
• The employee’s required monthly contribution to their coverage, and
• Any Section 4980H Safe Harbor information that applies, indicated by the safe harbor codes.
• Covered individuals’ information. If your coverage offer extends to the employee’s spouse and/or dependent(s), you’ll need the following information on them:
• Name,
• Social security number or date of birth, and
• Which months coverage was offered.

Once you have all the information you need, you can feel confident as you begin your Affordable Care Act filing.


You can feel even more confident in your ACA filing if you sign up with ExpressACAForms! We’re one of the IRS-authorized leaders in secure ACA Form e-filing. Visit our site or give us a call (704-839-2270) to learn more about how ExpressACAForms can help get your ACA e-filing done quickly and easily.

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The 1095 Forms

There are some pretty important forms you need to add to your tax season repertoire: the Affordable Care Act 1095 Forms.

Think of these forms as the W-2s of the health care coverage the ACA requires you to offer and report on each year. You’ll report certain information about the coverage you offered to each person you offered that coverage and with the IRS on these 1095 Forms.




Form 1095-C, Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage
We’re foregoing alphabetical order to better explain how these 1095 forms work. Form 1095-C is the form that’s completed by all Applicable Large Employers (ALEs) for their full-time employees. ALEs are employers with 50 or more full-time employees who are thereby subject to the ACA’s employer shared responsibility provisions.

To complete Form 1095-C, you’ll need:

• Employee information (name, SSN, address)
• Employer information (name, EIN, address, contact info)
• The Plan Start Month for each employee
• Offer of Coverage Codes for each employee
• The Employee Share of Lowest Cost Monthly Premium per month
• Spouse and dependent information (name, SSN/birth date, months covered)
• Section 4980H Safe Harbor Codes (if applicable)

Form 1095-B, Health Coverage
Form 1095-B is filed by everyone else who provides health care coverage throughout the year. That means small businesses, insurance agents, certain government agencies, and anyone else who provided minimum essential coverage to taxpayers.

To complete Form 1095-B, you’ll need:

• Filer information (name, EIN, address, phone number, and contact info)
• The total number of 1095-B Forms you’re filing
• Recipient information (name, SSN/birth date, address)
• Coverage type, broken down by month

If you’re using Form 1095-B to report Employer-Sponsored Coverage or coverage provided by another user, you’ll also need that other entity’s name, EIN, address, and contact information.

Form 1094, Transmittal Form
Each Form 1095 comes with its very own Form 1094 (B or C). This is the transmittal form that summarizes the 1095 return it’s accompanying to the IRS. That’s right, this one just goes to the IRS, not your employees/recipients.

When you e-file with ExpressACAForms, we’ll automatically create your 1094 Form for you based on the information that generates your 1095 Forms, all of which are IRS-authorized and made ready to e-file immediately. Check out our site to learn more about these and our various other features, all of which are designed to make your ACA filing as fast and simple as possible.


Questions? Just give us a call! We’re available by phone (704-839-2270) and live chat Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. EST, and by email 24/7 at support@ExpressACAForms.com.

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Why You Should Be Covering Your Employees' Dependents

If you read the fine print of the Affordable Care Act (or the summary on the IRS’s website), you’ll notice it doesn’t just mention your full-time employees when talking about to whom you’re required to offer minimum essential coverage.

In order for the health insurance you offer to meet minimum value - and therefore ACA compliance - it must also extend to the dependents of your full-time employees. And under the ACA, dependents include children and adopted children, up to the age of 26.

Even if you offer health insurance to all of your full-time employees, if it fails to cover their dependents, you can still incur an ACA penalty. Not covering the dependents of your employees signals that the coverage doesn’t meet minimum essential coverage and value, a.k.a. isn’t in compliance with the ACA.

And when you aren’t compliant with the ACA, you start incurring IRS penalties, in this case, the Employer Shared Responsibility Payment.

When you sign on with ACAwise, our year-round compliance software can help you keep on track with your coverage offers. We’ll alert you to any risks that may indicate your compliance is slipping, and after creating your 1094 and 1095 Forms, we’ll run them through a series of error checks to ensure your ACA reporting is correct.

With ACAwise, there’s virtually nothing to worry about when it comes to your ACA compliance, so why not get started today? Request a demo or sign up now to get everything squared away for the upcoming ACA filing season and beyond!

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Affordable Care Act Transmittal Forms 1094-B and 1094-C

Did you know that there’s more to your Affordable Care Act return than just Form 1095-B or 1095-C? That’s right: your ACA forms must be sent with a transmittal return, either Form 1094-B or 1094-C, each year.

Form 1094-B
Submitted with Forms 1095-B is Form 1094-B, Transmittal of Health Coverage Information Returns. The majority of Form 1094-B consists of basic information about the filer, including name, EIN, and contact information. On Form 1094-B, the filer also needs to report the number of Forms 1095-B submitted with the transmittal form.

Form 1094-B also requires the filer’s signature, title, and date before it can be submitted with the complete ACA return.

Form 1094-C
Form 1094-C, Transmittal of Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage Information Returns, which is submitted with 1095-C Forms, is a bit more complex than Form 1094-B. Because it requires more information, Form 1094-C is split into three parts:

• Part I: Applicable Large Employer Member (ALE Member)
• Part I includes all the basic information about the ALE whose ACA report this 1094-C belongs to, including the name, EIN, address, and person of contact.
• Lines 9-16 of Part I are filled out if the filer is a Designated Governmental Entity (DGE) filing on behalf of an employer. So in some instances, these lines will need to be left blank.
• On line 18 of Part I, the total number of 1095-C forms accompanying the 1094-C is included.
• And lastly, if this Form 1094-C is the authoritative transmittal for an ALE member in a group return, the box on line 19 should be checked. There can only be one authoritative transmittal filed for each employer.
• Part II: ALE Member Information
• In Part II of Form 1094-C, the filer will provide information on whether or not they’re a member of an Aggregated ALE Group. They’ll also need to include the total number of 1095-C forms filed by and/or on behalf of the ALE member and indicate if they apply for any Certifications of Eligibility.
• If the filer has multiple returns, they only need to fill out Part II on the authoritative transmittal Form 1094-C (as indicated by line 19).
• Part III: ALE Member Information - Monthly
• In Part III, filers indicate how many full-time employees and total employees they had each month of the year.
• Part IV: Other ALE Members of Aggregated ALE Group
• If the filer is a part of an Aggregated ALE Group and checked “Yes” on line 21 of Form 1094-C, they’ll need to complete Part IV.
• In Part IV, the filer lists the names and EINs of other ALE members of the Aggregated ALE Group.

Questions?
So there you have it: Forms 1094-B and 1094-C. If you have any further questions about these forms or how to e-file them, don’t hesitate to contact us here at ExpressACAForms! You can give us a call (704-839-2270) or send us a live chat Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET. Can’t make it then? Just send us an email to support@ExpressACAForms.com and we’ll get back with you as soon as possible!

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Understanding ACA Form 1095-B

When we talk about the information returns associated with Affordable Care Act, we tend to get hung up on Form 1095-C. It makes sense: Form 1095-C is the form Applicable Large Employers file and they’re the “insurance providers” going through the most changes thanks to the ACA. (And “most change” tends to mean “most attention.”)

That’s why we’re taking this post to talk exclusively about Form 1095-B!

Purpose of the Form
Form 1095-B, Health Coverage, is used to report information to the IRS and taxpayers about the minimum essential coverage of health insurance provided by the filer.

And in case you need a reminder: minimum essential coverage (or MEC) is the least amount of coverage legally required for taxpayers to have each year. While it’s the individual taxpayer’s responsibility to make sure they have coverage that meets MEC, it’s also the responsibility of insurance providers to offer MEC plans as set by the ACA.

Who Needs to File Form 1095-B
Generally, every person that provides MEC to individuals during the calendar year must file Form 1095-B to report the coverage. This does exclude certain employers (ALEs) and government employers who are subject to the employer shared responsibility provisions and therefore must file Form 1095-C.

In other words, health insurance issuers and carriers for most health insurance coverage, including individual market coverage and insured coverage sponsored by employers, as well as small employers need to file Form 1095-B for each covered individual each year.

When to File
If you need to file Form 1095-B with the IRS, you must do so at the beginning of the year following the year you offered coverage. And how you plan to file determines when you’ll need to file.

If you’re sending in paper copies to the IRS, you must submit Form 1095-B, along with its transmittal form, Form 1094-B, by February 28 (or 29). If you plan to e-file, you have until March 31. Keep in mind that if your due date ends up falling on a weekend or legal holiday, the deadline is automatically extended to the next business day.

And speaking of “automatically extended,” you can get an automatic 30-day extension of time to file your 1095-B forms if you file Form 8809 with the IRS by your original deadline.

And How to File
The more traditional way to file your ACA return is to mail it in each year. While the IRS recommends everyone e-file, you really only have to if you have more than 250 forms to file. So if you’re planning for traditional, mail Form 1094-B and your 1095-B forms by your deadline to:

• Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service Center, Austin, TX 73301
• If your principal business is in: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, or West Virginia
• Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service Center, Kansas City, MO 64999
• If your principal business is in: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, Washington, D.C., Wisconsin, or Wyoming

Of course, if you’re looking for a faster, easier, more secure way to file, then you should e-file with ExpressACAForms! With ExpressACAForms, you don’t have to fill out each individual form by hand before mailing it in, which can leave you susceptible to human error and at the mercy of the postal system. Instead, just upload the the ACA information you have using our bulk upload spreadsheet or one of your own, review the forms our program creates for you, and securely e-file them directly with the IRS.

If you have any other questions regarding Form 1095-B or e-filing your ACA return, give us a call! We’re always happy to help. We’re available at (704) 839-2270 and through live chat on our website Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m ET and we offer 24/7 customer assistance via email at support@ExpressACAForms.com!

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Are You Prepared for Next Year's ACA Changes?

Hey, there! Remember this past Affordable Care Act filing season? Got it? Good. Now forget everything you knew about ACA filing.

Well, not everything. The basics are still mostly the same, but there are a lot of changes coming with the 2016 filing season, which begins in January. For starters, one of the biggest:

Date Changes
That’s right: this year (and forevermore), you won’t have the first six months of the year to get your ACA return just right. The IRS, in an attempt to relieve some of the first-time ACA filing stress for filers and themselves, extended the actual ACA deadlines this past year. Next year, they’ll be back in their rightful places: January 31 (for the recipient forms), February 28 (for paper filers), and March 31 (for e-filers).

No More Leniency
The IRS was pretty generous last year; in addition to extending the deadlines, they also operated under a more lenient late-filing policy. No such luck this year. Last year, the policy was if you could prove you made good faith efforts to file on time, your late filing penalties would be forgiven. This year, it’s the same as every other IRS deadline: you don’t file on time, you pay the fine.

Penalties Are Going Up
The penalties for not providing (or not providing enough) insurance are going up as well. The IRS had a few other safety nets in place this year as far as insurance offers were concerned - only having to offer to 70% of your employees rather than 95%, for example, as well as other safe harbor reliefs. This year, those begin phasing out. Since the whole point of the ACA is to make sure every taxpaying American has access to good health insurance, the penalties stand to get more severe the longer Applicable Large Employers don’t provide coverage.

But You’ve Still Got ExpressACAForms
But the good news is you’ve still got us! One of the frontrunners in ACA e-filing for the 2015 tax year, ExpressACAForms helps make your ACA filing and compliance easier than ever. And we’re around all year too, not just during ACA season, to help answer any questions or get you started with ExpressACAForms.

Give us a call. We’re in the office Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET, and our phone number’s (704) 839-2270. We also offer live chat assistance while we’re in the office and 24/7 email support (support@ExpressACAForms.com) for when we’re not.

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ExpressACAForms E-filing Features: Postal Mailing

When you plan to e-file your Affordable Care Act Return Forms 1094 and 1095, you probably don’t prepare for much mailing. After all, you’re set up to do everything online - why should you have to mail something out too?

Well, regardless of whether you file your ACA Forms with the IRS by paper or electronically, you do still have some mailing to do. Form 1095 (B and C) has to be mailed to your employees or coverage recipients as well as the IRS. And, starting in 2017, they have to be mailed out two months before your forms are due with the IRS.


Form 1095 Recipient Copies
If you’re an ALE (Applicable Large Employer) filing Form 1095-C for all the employees you offered and provided coverage for throughout the year, you have to send a copy of that form to each of your employees. Likewise, if you’re a healthcare coverage provider filing 1095-B Forms for your clients and your clients’ employees, you need to send a copy of Form 1095-B to each individual offered coverage.

Now pay attention because here’s the important part: these recipient copies of Form 1095-B and 1095-C have to be mailed out by January 31 of the year following the year you’re reporting. So the 1095 Forms for the 2016 tax year must be sent by January 31, 2016.

This past year everyone got a break when the deadline was extended to March 31. However, since individuals need their copy of Form 1095 to complete their personal taxes, the IRS has set it up so that, from now on, Form 1095 is sent out with their W-2s, 1099s, or any other tax documents.

Postal Mailing with ExpressACAForms
At ExpressACAForms, we want to make things simple for you. In fact, we bet you’re probably e-filing so you don’t have to deal with stacks and stacks of paper, right? That’s why ExpressACAForms offers postal mailing, an option where you select for us to send out your Form 1095 recipient copies for you, and all for about what you’d pay for postage yourself.

With the postal mailing feature, ExpressACAForms guarantees your forms are postmarked and mailed by the January deadline. In fact, they’re usually mailed by the next business day after you send in your request.

To set up your order, simply select the postal mailing option on your checkout screen after you’ve entered in all of your ACA filing information. Once you pay and transmit your forms to the IRS, we’ll be alerted that your forms are ready to be sent to your recipients. So, in that way, there’s another added bonus to the postal mailing feature: by utilizing it, your ACA filing with the IRS gets done two months ahead of schedule. Think of how much more you can get done with that extra time!

Questions?
If you have any questions about the postal mailing feature or e-filing your ACA return with ExpressACAForms, feel free to contact our wonderful support team! We’re US-based and in the offices all year long, not just during tax season. Give us a call at (704) 839-2270 or send us a live chat or email to support@ExpressACAForms.com, and we’ll be happy to help!

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What Happens at ExpressACAForms After the Deadline?

It’s officially been a whole month since the 2015 Affordable Care Act filing deadline, and - believe it or not - ExpressACAForms hasn’t slowed down!

Sure, the actual number of forms we’re e-filing with the IRS for our clients has gone down; that’s to be expected when you have awesome clients who file on time. But the work we put into making ExpressACAForms the best e-filing option for Forms 1094 and 1095 hasn’t waned a bit.

We’re Still Helping with Corrections
Some of the errors that cause ACA forms rejections can get complex and time-consuming, especially TIN mismatches. Understandably, you’re already frustrated because you were sure the information you submitted the first time around was correct. And sometimes, even after submitting corrections, you can get another rejection because of a discrepancy in the IRS’s records.

Helping you through the entire correction process is one of the reasons the EACA customer support team is in our South Carolina based office year-round. We want to help make sure your forms are filed and finished, beginning to end, through all the corrections.

We’re Reading Up for Next Year
While the ACA deadline extension this year was a welcome relief for filers, e-file providers, and the IRS alike, it does mean that there’s now less time left for everyone to get themselves together for the 2016 filing season. Then, once January rolls around, we have to deal with the fact that we have half as much time to get ACA filings complete in 2017.

That’s why we’re keeping up to date with IRS news and data regarding 2016 ACA filing. At ExpressACAForms, you can always be sure we’ve got the latest, most secure option in IRS-authorized e-filing software.

We’re Coming Up with New and Better Ways to Help You
Just being up to date with IRS requirements and offering correction assistance aren’t enough to make ExpressACAForms the best and most innovative in ACA e-filing technology. Which is why we also make small tweaks to the program (don’t worry, you can still access and use everything in your account during these updates) during our “off season.” Additionally, keep an eye out for our year-round, full-service Affordable Care Act compliance and e-filing program (coming soon!), which offers even more ACA tools than EACA!


As we said earlier, if you have any questions, the EACA support team is here to help! Give us a call (704-839-2270) or send us a live chat Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. EDT. Or send us an email anytime to support@ExpressACAForms.com.

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How Full-Service E-filing Works with ExpressACAForms

When we’re helping people set up their accounts with ExpressACAForms, we’re frequently asked how this full-service solution works, and what exactly is included in the “full” part of the service. We’ll we’re here to tell ya:


The Full-Service Process
When you begin your full-service ACA e-filing process, it’s understandable to wonder how that process will go. Here’s how in five easy steps:

• Create your ExpressACAForms account
• Provide your basic employer details and upload the employee health benefit details you’ve tracked over the year.
• Sit back and relax as the program works to create your return.
• When you get an email alerting you your return is ready, log back into your account to review and approve your forms.
• Click the big, green button to securely transmit your return directly to the IRS.

That’s it. We’ll send you an email when your return has been processed and let you know if it was accepted or rejected. In the event it was rejected, ExpressACAForms will take you step-by-step through correcting and retransmitting your return until it’s accepted.

What Else is Included?
So that’s nice: the majority of your ACA filing requirement (filling out the forms) is taken care of with ExpressACAForms’s full-service process. But we didn’t want to stop there. The full-service treatment usually means a VIP treatment, right? So to make you feel very important, we also included in ExpressACAForms these awesome features that help make sure your forms are filed efficiently and without error.

Not to Mention…
With your ExpressACAForms account comes access to some of the best customer support in the nation. If you have any questions or need help with your return, just give us a call at (704) 839-2270 Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. EDT. We also offer 24/7 assistance at support@ExpressACAForms.com.

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