Surprise announcement by DOL affects small business health care planning

Nov 13, 2014

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in Accounting, Small Business, Tax Planning

I didn’t see this one coming either:

A small business employer who gives an employee money to help pay for the cost of Obamacare under any circumstances is considered to have set up an illegal group benefit plan that may trigger penalties under the Affordable Care Act. The warning is titled “FAQs about Affordable Care Act Implementation (Part XXII).
That’s the extreme out-take of this recent (November 6, 2014) warning by the U.S. Department of Labor. I wrote about it here: http://tonynovak.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/dol-warns-employers-do-not-reimburse-individual-health-insurance/.

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One response to “Surprise announcement by DOL affects small business health care planning”

Tony Novak, CPA, MBA, MT

November 14, 2014

For clarification: my earlier advice on after-tax contributions to employee health insurance was based on http://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/Employer-Health-Care-Arrangements that appears to exempt (allow) the arrangement but the 11/6/2014 announcements seem to directly contradict this allowance. Given the severity of the penalties, it makes sense to err on the side of caution untill we have further clarification.

Surprise announcement by DOL affects small business health care planning

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One response to “Surprise announcement by DOL affects small business health care planning”

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