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Affordable Care Act Workshop for Small Business and Self-Employed Clients



Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Product Code - TMW64
Speaker(s): Alden J. Bianchi, Mintz Levin Cohn Ferrris Glovsky and Popeo PC and Christopher E. Condeluci, Venable LLP
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Health care reform dominates the focus of many employee benefit plan advisers these days-- with good reason. The deadline for compliance is only months away.
Businesses with fewer than 50 full-time employees are exempt from the employer mandate. However, exempt small employers that offer coverage must meet certain other requirements -- such as covering the “essential health benefits” and” “actuarial value” requirements, and limiting the cost-sharing (e.g., deductibles) under the plan. Small employers also are subject to the new “premium rating” rules.

Some clients will be tempted to get creative with business structures and managing employee headcounts and hours worked to avoid the employer mandate. You must guide them through the intricacies of ACA to keep them in compliance.
Also, your individual clients, including self-employed business people, will be required to have health coverage by 2014 or pay a penalty.

Our experts will explain the options and penalties for your small business and self-employed clients, including:

  • Which employers are exempt from the employer mandate?
  • How are “full-time” employees defined?
  • How are independent contractors, temporary workers and seasonal workers treated under ACA?
  • Are officers and shareholders counted as employees in some circumstances?
  • Are employees who opt out of coverage and receive a subsidy through an exchange counted for the 50-employee threshold?
  • Must an employer pay penalties if it offers coverage to full-time employees but not to part-time employees?
  • Are self-employed individuals responsible for their own coverage? What rules apply?
  • What is the future of Health Reimbursement Accounts?
  • Are employers required to cover spouses of employees?
  • Will the IRS aggregate related businesses?
  • What types and levels of cost sharing are permissible, and how much can an employer charge its employees for premiums?
  • Who is eligible for the temporary small business tax credit and what are the eligibility requirements? 

Alden J. Bianchi, Mintz Levin Cohn Ferrris Glovsky and Popeo PC and Christopher E. Condeluci, Venable LLP

Alden J. Bianchi is the practice group leader of Mintz Levin's Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Practice and is a member in the Employment, Labor & Benefits Section. He advises corporate, not-for-profit, governmental, and individual clients on a broad range of executive compensation and employee benefits issues, including qualified and nonqualified retirement plans, stock and stock-based compensation arrangements, ERISA fiduciary and prohibited transaction issues, benefit-related aspects of mergers and acquisitions, and health and welfare plans. Bianchi represented the Romney administration in connection with the historic 2006 Massachusetts health care reform act, and he has testified before the Senate Finance Committee on the subject of health care reform.

Bianchi is a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the Suffolk University and Georgetown University law schools, and he holds an LL.M. in taxation from Boston University School of Law. He is also a fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel. Bianchi is a member of the Bloomberg BNA Pension & Benefits Publications Advisory Board. He is also a co-author of Bloomberg BNA Compensation Planning Portfolio 374: "ERISA-Litigation, Procedure, Preemption and Other Title I Issues," and a report available on the Bloomberg BNA Benefits Practice Resource Center as part of the Benefits Practitioners' Strategy Guide: "An Introduction to the Temporary Federal Subsidy For COBRA Premium Assistance Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009."

Christopher E. Condeluci, of Counsel with Venable LLP, focuses his practice on employee benefits and tax policy, with a specific emphasis on health care reform, retirement and compensation policy. As former Tax Counsel to the Senate Finance Committee, Chris actively participated in the health reform debate and he is one of the few senior staffers to join the private sector since the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Through his experience on Capitol Hill and the development of this important legislation, Mr. Condeluci helps clients with compliance with the new health care law. He can also advise on shaping any future health care-related legislative initiatives that may affect his clients. Furthermore, Mr. Condeluci has significant technical experience in retirement planning, more specifically tax-qualified retirement plans.

His experience also includes offshore deferred compensation, payroll taxes, education tax incentives (including 529 plans), cafeteria plans and health flexible spending and dependent care arrangements, health savings accounts, fringe benefit programs, and worker classification.

Prior to joining Venable, Mr. Condeluci served as Tax and Benefits Counsel for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, where he represented the Senate Finance Committee in negotiating details of legislative policy changes on matters relating to health care, retirement, executive compensation, education tax incentives, payroll taxes, insurance tax, S Corporations, and other tax policy issues with Senate Leadership; the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means; and the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor.

Mr. Condeluci has written articles about retiree medical benefits and the defined benefit pension plan funding rules prescribed under the Pension Protection Act of 2006. He is also the co-author of a chapter on fiduciary issues in welfare plans in an ABA-commissioned book entitled ERISA Fiduciary Law and was a significant contributor to the Health Savings Account Answer Book and the ERISA Fiduciary Answer Book - relating health care reform issues. Mr. Condeluci frequently serves as speaker and commentator on a wide variety of health care, employee benefits and tax policy topics.