Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Municipalities, School Districts, Governmental Entities – ACA Reporting

Posted on by ACA Reporting Service
24
Aug

Across the country municipal government, cities, towns and school districts are beginning to learn their responsibilities for Affordable Care Act (ACA) reporting to the IRS under Internal Revenue Code 6055 and 6056.  We speak to these municipal groups every day, and this often is a complete shock to them.  What do you mean I have a self funded plan?

For municipal groups and school districts under the state health plan in their given state, they are being notified that they are actually on a self funded plan.  The reason for this is the manner in which the states generally arrange these plans and file with their department of insurance.  Since these plans are self funded, they have very specific reporting requirements under the ACA.  The largest shock for these groups is that the states are not performing the reporting on their behalf, but rather it is the responsibility of each individual municipality, school district and other governmental entity.

Due to these facts, it is imperative that these organizations understand what their requirements are, preferably in a simple and easy manner.  To assist with the learning curve, we have recorded a free webinar that can be accessed on demand.  The goal of this webinar is to tell you only what you need to know, and to do this in less than 45 minutes.  The feedback for this session has been excellent, so we hope you find it helpful.  Simply press play below to get started.

Session Overview Notes:

  • Overall Presentation 40 minutes (the last 10 minutes covered most frequently asked questions)
  • Session was a quick (non-attorney) overview of ACA Reporting
  • What did the Affordable Care Act Accomplish?
    • Individual mandate to have health insurance  (IRS 6055)
    • Employer pay or play rules (IRS 6056)
  • How will the IRS ensure individual and employer compliance?
  • What are employers options when it comes to ACA Reporting
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All Large Employers MUST Complete ACA Reporting (Even Fully Insured Groups)

Posted on by ACA Reporting Service

This comes as a surprise to many, but YES – if you are an employer with 50+ employees (or full time equivalent employees), you must complete ACA Reporting to the IRS (forms 1094 and 1095).

But I’m Fully Insured . . . My insurance carrier will take care of this right?No!

You might have thought that your insurance carrier was going to take care of this, but they only report the portion that they are required to report as an insurance carrier.  Employers still have additional responsibilities.  

The easiest way to think about this is by considering what the Affordable Care Act accomplished:

  • Individual Mandate – all US citizens must now have health insurance or pay a penalty
  • Employer Mandate – all large employers (50+ employees) must offer coverage and that coverage must be affordable
  • The IRS is in charge of making sure these things happen.

So how does the IRS make sure that an individual did have health insurance and doesn’t owe an individual tax penalty?

This is accomplished through the IRS receiving specific forms from the various places that an individual could have coverage:

  • The exchanges send the IRS the ‘A’ Forms (1095A)
  • The insurance carriers send the ‘B’ Forms (1095B)
  • And self insured employers must report everyone covered under their plan for the year using the ‘C’ Forms (part 3 of 1095C)

How does the IRS make sure each large employer (a) offered coverage and (b) that the coverage was affordable?

This is accomplished through the IRS receiving a completed form 1095 by ALL LARGE EMPLOYERS.  Specifically, part 2 of form 1095C is used to accomplish this task.

So as you can see this is not something that will be fulfilled by insurance carriers, and the penalties for not filing are substantial.  (IRS Fines)

Have questions?  Contact us from the support tab.  Thanks!

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Top ACA service vendors implement cutoff dates for new clients!

Posted on by ACA Reporting Service

Supreme Court Rules In Favor of Subsidies

Last Thursday (June 25th) the Supreme Court approved federal subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. So the result? The ACA and all the mandates that go with it are not going anywhere soon. This is forcing employers to ask themselves the hard hitting question, “Are we ready for the ACA mandate”?

Are Employers Really Ready for ACA?

The reality is that the majority of employers have not yet begun to implement a strategy to comply with the new ACA compliance requirements. With the first reports being due by January 2016, many employers are left scrambling for a solution. According to a recent survey roughly 85 percent of mid-sized employers do not have a solution in place that will allow them to submit the required data. With all of this stress pressing down on employers, who will they turn to for the answers? That’s right, they are looking to their Benefit brokers and Payroll providers.

Time is running out for ACA Employer Reporting!

Yes, you read that correctly. The demand for ACA reporting services are growing so quickly that large technology vendors are saying “no more” to new clients after the cutoff dates. The service providers below have announced their cutoff dates for this year:

  • Equifax – August 2015
  • Equifax e(fx) – July 31, 2015
  • ADP National – Mid-July 2015
  • ADP Major – June 17, 2015

If you are still looking for a solution for your 6056 reporting and filing needs, then you are clearly running out of time. So not only is the timeline for implementation diminishing, but the availability of quality vendors is also dwindling.

Are you concerned yet? You don’t have to be. We are still here to help. Let our ACA specialists assist you in determining the reporting solutions that are right for you.

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Employee Benefit Brokers, ACA Reporting. Huge Prospecting Opportunity, OR Administrative Pitfall?

Posted on by ACA Reporting Service

The Million Dollar Question most employee benefit brokers are considering currently is should our firm try to perform this ACA reporting via an in-house technology solution that we purchase, or recommend having our clients use an outside vendor (such as us here at ACAReportingService.com)? The reality is that every operation is different, has different needs and have promised their clients different things.  Some brokers take a full service approach and look to take administrative burdens off of their clients.  Other brokers take a more consultative approach.  Neither avenue is ‘wrong’, but each works for different types of benefit broker operations.

Regardless of which option you choose, here are some things you should be thinking of as you consider the question:

  • Do we have the necessary resources internally to do a good job with this IRS form filing function?
  • Do we have the knowledge internally to complete the job well?
  • What approach will be most comfortable to our clients?
  • What are the security ramifications of the solution we choose?  (Knowing that having employee social security numbers compromised could be a disaster for your company.)
  • If you decide upon an outsourced solution, will you want to refer your clients to someone who also competes with your company as a benefit broker?
  • Do we need a solution to talk with employers about right now?  What is gained or lost by waiting longer into the year before bringing a good solution to the table?
  • How much time, money and staff will it take to deploy our solution?
  • Would our time be better spent prospecting for new clients during this time as opposed to trying to manage the process internally?
  • Which option is more profitable to our business?
  • What is the logic of the system we intend to use?  Are the codes and amounts for 1095c lines 14, 15 and 16 automatically generated?  Will our staff or clients be responsible for completing these fields without the assistance of smart technology to intuitively figure out what the codes should be?
  • How will customer service be handled for this whole process?

Often the reality for an employee benefit broker is that a mixture of different solutions makes best sense for their operation.  When it comes to full service ACA 6056 reporting and efiling, we are here to help. 

If you are interested to learn more about things you should be thinking of as a broker, click here for a prior blog post which has proven to be quite helpful.

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10 Quick Reasons To Partner With Us

Posted on by ACA Reporting Service

Often when speaking with Payroll Companies we get the question, “Why would we not just build our own internal ACA ComplianceCA reporting capabilities for our clients?”.  Here are a few quick reasons:

  1. Your major competitors (ADP, Paychex, etc) already have a system and they are trying to poach your clients by showing that they already have a solution.
  2. Your clients really want a solution – NOW.
  3. Developing ACA Reporting capabilities takes a lot of time and money.
  4. Instead of spending your resources building additional technology, you could have all of the technology and still get all of the profits you expected to get.
  5. By partnering with us, you likely will be more profitable than if you developed the technology on your own.
  6. We offer a FULLY WHITE LABELED SOLUTION for your payroll company.  Your clients will see us as You!
  7. We are ACA experts already.  Do you really want to learn all that is required to be an expert?
  8. By partnering with us, your clients will also have access to a full employee benefit enrollment system if they desire.
  9. We have built a proprietary process based upon our discussion with the IRS and in-depth knowledge of forms 1094 and 1095.
  10. We will deliver to your clients an incredible customer service experience.
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ACA Reporting Fast Turn Around

Posted on by ACA Reporting Service

Just a quick marketplace update for anyone interested.  We are proud to announce that our current turn around time for producing final forms 1095-C for employees is within 48 hours of receiving final workbook data necessary to create these forms.  We are incredibly proud of our staff who has been able to make this quick of a turn around time reality.  So if you are in need of some quick help, give our customer service department a call!

Still need help with reporting?  We are accepting clients for 2015 calendar year reporting.  Visit the pricing section of our website for more information.

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Form 1095-C Printing & Mailing Service Released

Posted on by ACA Reporting Service

If you have not heard the news yet, we have recently opened up our form 1095-B and form 1095-C mailing services to employers.  The feedback we have received thus far is that we are one of the least expensive option in the marketplace, especially when considering the total value we bring to the process.

You can learn more by visiting this page on our website here…

In addition, we have released a form 1095-C code calculator to assist employers with knowing more of the logic regarding how lines 14, 15 and 16 work.  This is being provided courtesy of TaxForm1095.com.  You can see this calculator on our website from here.