IRS Publishes Final Rules on ACA Employer Responsibility Penalties

Nothing related to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is as simple as the media makes it out to be. This is also true for the final regulations published by the IRS regarding shared responsibility requirements.
The final regulations, while similar to the proposed rules, address questions posed by employers trying to figure out how to practically apply the ACA’s employer shared responsibility requirements. This ACA provision focuses on requiring “large” employers to either offer health insurance coverage to their full-time employees or pay a penalty if one or more of their staff enrolls in an exchange plan and receives subsidies to pay a portion of their premiums.
These rules also include new examples of how the look-back measurement period will work in practice for determining which employees are to be treated as full-time.

• When the large employer shared responsibility penalty will apply to your business or organization
• The available transition relief for employers who must comply in 2015
• Other changes on the horizon that employers should be planning for now