My firm Freedom Benefits offers a 2015 compliance toolkit to help small business employers who find themselves on the wrong side of 2015 ACA requirements. The tax penalties can be significant for the tens of thousands of firms affected. Equally important, IMO, is the need to effectively communicate the required changes to employees who are caught in the middle of this mess.
The small business toolkit consists of six documents ranging from sample employee notifications and email wording to a document describing a new after-tax ACA-compliant payroll payment arrangement for the allowable payroll voluntary reduction individual health insurance that is intended to minimize risks to the employer. The toolkit is meant for small business employers who:
a) have paid for or reimbursed individual health insurance through a Section 105 plan after 6/30/2015,
b) paid or reimbursed uninsured health expenses outside of an integrated group health insurance plan after 1/1/2015, or
c) offer a Flexible Spending Account with carry-over benefits from 2014 and an Health Savings Account in combination.
All three of these situations raise serious tax penalty risks for small business owners if left unaddressed before the 2015 tax filing deadlines this year (beginning with the February 1, 2016 deadline for filing W2 forms). Some penalties could be in the tens of thousands of dollars even for firms with a few employees.
We suspect there are at least tens of thousands of small firms that would immediately benefit from this but few small business firms or tax advisers are fully aware of the potential tax penalty impact of the current situation that I describe at http://tonynovak.com/cpa/index.php/2015/12/16/small-business-tax-changes-for-2015/ .
Right now the toolkit is available free of charge but only to firms that hire me for a remote flat fee consultation (http://tonynovak.com/flat-fee-for-tony-novak-cpa.html ). I recognize this is not a great marketing strategy for a valuable tool like this and so I am looking for better options.
Request to readers: If you know of anyone that would have an interest in incorporating or promoting this toolkit/service, please consider passing on this blog post in hopes of sparking a conversation.
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