Employers need to be aware of their health care-related obligations. Is your monitoring system for implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s rules up to date? Does it accurately and timely display deadlines under the Act and extensions and transition relief that the Department of Treasury and IRS, the Department of Labor, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have granted? Does it reflect the 2014 transition relief provided for the employer mandate also known as “pay or play”?

The employer shared responsibility law, under which employers averaging 50 or more full-time and full-time equivalent employees risk having to pay a penalty tax if at least one full-time employee obtains qualified health plan coverage on a health exchange, was slated to be effective January 1, 2014. The White House gave employers an extra year before they risk having to make excise tax payments under the “pay or play” law and before they must comply with related information collection and reporting obligations. These provisions will be “fully effective for 2015,” according to the IRS. The limited relief does not alter other 2014 deadlines, including the requirement that individuals have health care coverage that is minimum essential coverage and the availability of the premium assistance tax credit.

A compliance monitoring system can only work if the information in the system is up to date. The Health Care Reform Legislation Timelines on Bloomberg BNA’s Tax and Accounting Center help you keep your monitoring system current. The Tax and Accounting Center contains two timelines for employers—one organized by effective date and one organized by topic. It also features a regularly updated guidance timeline that lists chronologically the regulations and other formal and informal guidance issued by Treasury and the IRS, the DOL, and CMS.

To view these timelines, click http://taxandaccounting.bna.com/btac, and go to the Practice Tools under the Federal tab or the Compensation & Benefits tab of the Bloomberg BNA Tax and Accounting Center.

--Nadia Masri
Editor (Compensation Planning)