Is Your Payroll Reporting Ready for Affordable Care Act (ACA) Compliance? - PayNW

All applicable large employers (ALEs), businesses with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees, are required, as of January 1, 2016, to submit Forms 1095-C and 1094-C to the IRS with information about any healthcare coverage that was offered to any full-time employee to meet Affordable Care Act (ACA) reporting compliance. The IRS will use this data to administer employer shared responsibility provisions, as well as premium tax credits. Effective for calendar year 2015, your company may have to make a payment if you do not offer adequate, affordable coverage to your full-time employees, and one or more of those employees get a premium tax credit.

Any employee who was working full-time for at least one month of the year will also need to be given a copy of their Form 1095-C to use when filing their individual tax returns to see if they can claim the premium tax credit.

Section 4980H of the Internal Revenue Code also states that companies that share common ownership, or are otherwise related, are generally combined for the purposes of determining your ALE status, even if some of the companies have less than 50 full-time employees on their own.

To stay in compliance, employers must answer these questions and then act accordingly:

• Is your business an applicable large employer subject to the shared responsibility penalties or are you just required to file the 1094-C and 1095-C reports?
  • If you have between 50 and 99 employees, you may be eligible for certain transition relief.
• Does the healthcare coverage you are offering meet minimum essential coverage requirements and actuarial minimum value requirements, and is it considered affordable on an employee-by-employee basis?

As you can see, spreadsheets, homegrown reports, and manual calculations for ACA employer administration will do little to simplify a highly complex process that has potentially significant financial consequences for your business. You need an integrated workforce management solution that can help you track, integrate, and analyze data across time and attendance, payroll, and human resources (HR) in order to develop and execute a best-fit strategy for ACA compliance.

PayNorthwest has the solution you need! Call an Employer Services Advisor today at 1.866.729.6920 to find out how we can make ACA easy and painless for you.

Click here to learn more about the Affordable Care Act and find out what your employer responsibilities are!

Payroll Compliance

Ensuring proper payroll compliance and avoiding common payroll mistakes is crucial for operating a business in Washington State, or anywhere in the country as ACA is a federal law. 

For more help with Washington Payroll or payroll in other states, contact us today.