Companies with fewer than 100 employees who think they don’t have to worry about the Act until 2016 “missed the fine print,” says an article in the Los Angeles Journal which cites advice from Robert Sheen, Editor the Times and President First Capitol , Inc.
In 2016, with just 50 or more workers will have to report to the Internal Revenue whether they offered to those workers this year, and provide required statements to each their employees.
“Sound simple? It’s not,” writes Journal reporter Marni Usheroff. “The process involves matching up human resources and benefits data a basis – for every .”
Sheen told Usheroff that failure to file information correctly with the can trigger $100 . That means companies should already be tracking information about each their employees now, rather than until next year. That information can range from birth dates, union status, date hired (and terminated) and worked each , to the dates the distributed information to each worker about company-sponsored .
“The big challenge we see right now is a company needs to marry these data that meet this Internal Revenue Code requirement,” said Sheen. “They can’t keep it all separate and at the end January try to put certain data from different departments into one source.”
Sheen points out that the will match company records about each ’s against the data from online marketplaces or exchanges, where who purchase may obtain a subsidy to help cover their . If an receives a subsidy for the company should have , the may impose the .
The Journal quotes Kevin Kuhlman, director federal public policy for the National Federation Independent , who pointed out that offered by companies must provide adequate , including benefits specified by the , and must be , meaning the to employees does not exceed a specified percentage their income.
“There’s a lot different factors to streamline,” Kuhlman told the reporter. “You might be talking to an accountant income and to a broker information. … That’s why I think it is important for to get a system in place now before scrambling this next spring.”
Sheen said his staff is already working hard to ensure that First Capitol’s clients comply with the detailed requirements the . “Some my guys working to get the data in the right format have been staying until 1 o’clock, 2 o’clock in the morning or overnight,” he said.