On March 18, Congress passed, and President Trump signed into law, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). The FFCRA is a bipartisan effort to help employers and individuals alike in managing pay, benefits, and business considerations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The focus of this alert is the impact of FFCRA on employer-sponsored benefits and [Read More]
States and the federal government have issued (or re-issued) guidance for employers in response to the recent novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. As of March 14, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported more than 2,000 cases from 49 states and Washington, DC. Agency guidance includes the following: Internal Revenue [Read More]
On January 31, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a one-year extension to the transition policy (originally announced November 14, 2013, and extended six times since) for individual and small group health plans that allow issuers to continue policies that do not meet ACA standards. The transition policy has been extended to [Read More]
As part of the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 (the “Act”), Congress repealed Section 512(a)(7) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the “Code”). This Code section was added as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the “TCJA”) and resulted in an unrelated business income tax (UBIT) liability when a tax-exempt [Read More]
On December 17, 2019, the House and Senate agreed to a bipartisan legislative package of spending bills to avoid a government shutdown. This package of bills is collectively referred to as the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 (the “Act”). The Act has passed the House and is expected to pass the Senate by December 20. [Read More]
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has released Notice 2019-63, which extends the deadline for furnishing 2019 Forms 1095-B and 1095-C to individuals from January 31, 2020, to March 2, 2020. The Notice also provides penalty relief for good-faith reporting errors and suspends the requirement to issue Form 1095-B to individuals, under certain conditions. The due [Read More]
The IRS has released draft forms and instructions for the 2019 B-Series and C-Series reporting forms (Forms 1094-B, 1095-B, 1094-C and 1095-C) used by employers and coverage providers to report certain information to full-time employees and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). As background, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) added Sections 6055 and 6056 to the [Read More]
On November 6, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released Revenue Procedure 2019-44, which raises the health Flexible Spending Account (FSA) salary reduction contribution limit by $50 to $2,750 for plan years beginning in 2020. The Revenue Procedure also contains the cost-of-living adjustments that apply to dollar limitations in certain sections of the Internal Revenue [Read More]
On September 27, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released proposed regulations on the application of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) employer shared responsibility provisions to a new type of Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) available starting in 2020. In June 2019, the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Treasury Department [Read More]
On August 26, 2019, the Departments of Labor (DOL), Health and Human Services (HHS), and Treasury released an FAQ that provides guidance to employers, plan sponsors and health insurance issuers regarding a recent HHS regulation that could be read to require group health plans to treat prescription drug manufacturers’ coupons as employee cost-sharing for purposes [Read More]