Under the reform law, employers with more than 50 workers must offer health insurance to them or pay a fine when employees have to buy coverage on their own. The IRS published a request for comment asking how best to determine whether a company meets the 50-employee threshold and which employees would count toward the total.
Normally, the IRS would require such calculations on a month-to-month basis, but that could be confusing. “If employer-sponsored coverage were limited to employees who satisfied the definition of a full-time employee during a month, employees might move in and out of employer coverage as frequently as monthly, which would be undesirable from both the employee’s and the employer’s perspective,” the IRS stated.
The IRS is seeking comment on an alternative proposal, under which employers would determine employees’ eligibility by looking back over a period of months, then providing coverage for the same time period moving forward.
Read the IRS release on healthcare reform.
Related articles on the mandate to buy health insurance:
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