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Starting July 31, 2013, the IRS will start collecting, and employers will start paying, a new excise tax authorized by the health reform law. This annual fee will be imposed on most insured and self-insured group health plans for the next seven years. The feds have amended the April 2013 IRS Form 720 (Quarterly Federal […]
Is your company considering reclassifying certain workers from now on, but hesitant because it is worried about triggering a federal employment tax audit or having not consistently filed Forms 1099 for those workers in the past? If you answered “yes,” then the IRS’ Temporary Expanded Voluntary Classification Settlement Program may interest you, but you must […]
Although many 401(k) plans offer participants loans, a statistic that plan sponsors don’t want to see is the number and size of those loans increasing. But some of them are seeing just that, according to Wells Fargo. A recent study by the banking company of fourth-quarter 2012 activity at the defined contribution plans it administers […]
Most of the money contributed to traditional individual retirement accounts comes from rollovers, but the choices involved in moving 401(k) savings to an IRA or from one employer-sponsored plan to another should be made easier and more efficient. That’s the finding of the U.S. Government Accountability Office in its latest report, “401(K) Plans: Labor and […]
Trustees of health savings accounts, as well as participants, have some time left for reporting on 2012 accounts. And now they can begin preparing for 2013 reporting. The IRS has issued a reminder concerning the Form 5498-SA, “HSA, Archer MSA, or Medicare Advantage MSA Information,” for 2012 and 2013. The IRS on March 5 reminded […]
With thousands of pages of new laws and rules, there must be thousands of new reasons for employees to sue for health benefits not delivered properly in the wake of near-complete enactment of health reform starting in 2014, one could be forgiven for thinking. Health reform certainly does appear to be somewhat of a litigation […]
Employer-sponsored plans that are secondary to Medicare are not subject to health reform’s expensive transitional reinsurance fee, nor are health flexible spending arrangements, health savings accounts and most health reimbursement arrangements. On March 11, 2013, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published its final regulation on the transitional reinsurance fee, which takes effect […]
Now that the IRS has incorporated 403(b) plans into its Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System, it is providing some plan sponsors with compliance relief, and is expanding upon some online tools it provides to help plan sponsors identify the steps they can take to help maintain their 403(b) plans. In January, the IRS issued Revenue […]
It’s been busy recently for the federal government when it comes to implementing various health reform requirements. Here’s an overview of new guidance issued the week of Feb. 25-March 1 on health insurer fees, market reforms, the Small Business Health Options Program, multiple employer welfare arrangement regulation and information reporting. Self-insured Health Plans Exempt from […]
Under what circumstances will an employer owe an Employer Shared Responsibility payment? In 2014, says Simon, senior legal editor at BLR®, if an employer meets the 50 full-time employee threshold, the employer generally will be liable for an Employer Shared Responsibility payment only if either: The company doesn’t provide coverage to substantially all (95% or […]