Posted on 06/30/2015 12:37:57 PM PDT by Nachum
Small businesses that reimburse employees for the cost of premiums for individual health insurance policies or pay their health costs directly will be fined up to $36,500 a year per employee under a new Internal Revenue Service regulation that takes effect July 1, 2015.
According to the notice, an employer arrangement that reimburses or pays for employee individual health premiums is considered to be a group health plan that is subject to the $100 per-employee per-day penalty. The penalty applies whether the reimbursement is considered a before-tax or after-tax contribution.
Its the biggest penalty no one is talking about, said Kevin Kuhlman, policy director for the National Association of Independent Business. The penalty for compensating employees for healthcare-related expenses is enough to destroy most small businesses. You can read more in this NFIB post, No Kidding: This Week IRS starts Punishing Businesses for Helping Workers Buy Insurance.
The new IRS penalty is more than 18 times greater than the $2,000 employer-mandate penalty under ObamaCare for not providing qualifying health insurance for employees. And employers with fewer than 50 workers are not exempt, as they are from the employer-mandate penalty.
The rule appears nowhere in the Affordable Care Act but was developed by the Obama administrations regulation writers at the IRS. The rule punishes small businesses for providing the only health insurance support many can afford a contribution to help employees pay premiums for their individual or family health insurance policies or to help finance direct payment for medical services.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
There is no law.
But the IRS makes stuff up.
And the Supremes say, “Sounds good! Go for it!”
Congress should disband.
Exactly!
Think of all who would be uninsured if not for some help with the premiums by their employers. (This is SERIES, not /s.)
I think SMALL employers can exclude anyone. It is 50 and over that have to insure all “full time” or whatever.
Add some firecrackers, ammo and guns and you’re on....
And employers with fewer than 50 workers are not exempt, as they are from the employer-mandate penalty.
As Chuck Harder,former talkshow host,used to say “no good deed goes unpunished.”
I don’t remember when they stopped, but if you worked for Budweiser, you got a couple of free cases every month.
“I dont remember when they stopped, but if you worked for Budweiser, you got a couple of free cases every month.”
Same with Philip Morris-a carton a week.
I think we are talking about 2 different things (the “employer mandate” that requires employers of 50 or more to offer/provide health insurance vs the fines for small businesses discussed in the article/thread).
But I could be wrong.
The rule covers employers with more than one employee participating in an employer health care/coverage payment arrangement. Employers can exclude workers who 1) have fewer than three years of service to the company; 2) are under age 25; and 3) are part-time or seasonal employees. The $100 a day fine applies for all other employees covered by the payment arrangement. S Corporations are exempt through the end of 2015.
I give up.
What was your stinking point?
Yes, it’s no accident that O’s buddy Warren Buffet is in the insurance business big-time.
I guess my point was that I don’t think that small employers are required to provide ANY health insurance to anyone. ?
Fair enough. But, then you go from small employers providing for their employees to the government forcing them to not do this.
This government who bemoans evil, rich, employers taking advantage of their poor employees is forcing employers to not take care of their employees in ways that they can..
Bump
There is nothing stopping them from helping the employees, they just can't do it by cutting them a tax free check to buy private insurance or subsidized exchange insurance.
I think it is similar to how they (fed) wanted the states to provide their own exchanges, and have mandated that the over 50 employers MUST provide insurance. They (fed) WANT the small employers to offer GROUP health insurance. This would keep the employees of small employers off of the 0bamacare exchanges, both national and state. So to encourage that, they are PUNISHING small employers who say, “We will not offer a group health insurance plan, but we will help you with your premiums to get individual/family coverage on the exchanges”.
So they are penalizing small employers in an effort to FORCE them to get group insurance instead of letting them help their employees with premium costs.
Or be able to get more than 29.5 hours a week while doing it.
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