As many business owners are aware, the employer mandate that requires medium and large businesses to supply employee benefits to their workers has been pushed back not once, but twice – this time to 2016. What entrepreneurs may be less cognizant of are the finer details for this portion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
To help detail them, BenefitsPro recently analyzed what some of the most important components and provisions of the mandate include. Perhaps the most important of all is that the law doesn't apply to all business owners. The insurance news resource pointed out that, specifically, companies that have more than 50 workers but fewer than 100 may be eligible for allowances that other workplaces aren't, such as with tax filings.
"To assist these employers in transitioning into compliance with section 4980H … no assessable payment under section 4980H(a) or (b) will apply for any calendar month during 2015 or any calendar month during the portion of the 2015 plan year that falls in 2016," the rule stated, according to BenefitsPro.
However, the transition relief will only be supplied if businesses ensure that they won't reduce the size of their workforce or cut hours in 2014. If it's absolutely necessary, however, they must supply a justification for why the cut was made.
Another key component of the employer mandate is what the government considers to be a full-time employee. This can be done by business owners through some basic arithmetic.
"The number of [full-time equivalent employees] for each calendar month in the preceding calendar year is determined by calculating the aggregate number of hours of service for that calendar month for employees who were not full-time employees – but not more than 120 hours of service for any employee – and dividing that number by 120," the rule indicated.
Other details of the employer mandate can be found at Benefit Pro's website.
