On September 5, 2013, the Treasury Department, in conjunction with the Internal Revenue Service, issued proposed rules concerning the reporting requirements for insurers and select employers mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Interested parties and the public can submit comments on the proposed regulations through early November. Once the rules have been finalized, voluntary compliance is encouraged through 2014 (during which time reporting is optional), with mandatory compliance and full implementation of the regulations coming in 2015. (Readers may recall that earlier in the year, the Obama administration delayed the implementation of the employer mandate until 2015. The individual mandate goes into effect in 2014.)
The reporting requirements can be found in sections 6055 and 6056 of the Internal Revenue Code. Depending on the classification of the reporting entity, an employer or insurer must report, among other things, information about the entity providing coverage and information about the covered individuals, the type of coverage provided and dates of such coverage. As with any governmental mandate, the devil is in the details or, more precisely, in the proposed implementing regulations.
The proposed regulations attempt to streamline what would appear to be fairly basic statutory responsibilities. For instance, the regulations would replace dedicated reporting forms (sections 6055 and 6056 statements) with W-2 tax form reporting, and would further reduce reporting requirements based on certain conditions.
While the details of the reporting requirements are beyond the scope of this post, employers and insurers interested in commenting on the proposed rules should review the text of the proposed regulations and consult with appropriate professionals. At a minimum, employers will need to determine how ACA applies to them and what must be done to comply with the new laws.