Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) a small business above 50 employees is required to provide healthcare for their employees. These companies that have 50 or more full-time employees must provide health insurance to 95% of their employees and dependents up to age 26 or risk paying a tax penalty of $2,000 per full-time employee. An article on Forbes says, “many small businesses still do provide health care for their employees, either out of a sense of responsibility or out of a desire to attract quality candidates (or both).” Although, depending on how those plans are paid for you could run into some trouble.
Kelly Phillips Erb a writer for Forbes goes over ways to make the best choices as a small business to avoid that trouble. She states, “If it doesn’t make good fiscal sense for you to provide health insurance coverage for your employees, or if the coverage you do provide is less than ideal, consider setting up an additional health benefits plan. A Section 105 plan…allows tax-free reimbursements for expenses.” She also goes on later to recommend using a broker and lists the benefits.
The biggest issue is that companies aren’t informed of their options and there ARE options. It is no longer just the black and white opt in or opt out group plans available to businesses. As a company are you informed of the different options available to you? Is your current situation still affordable? Let me know and in the meantime look at the recommendations from Kelly’s article on Forbes HERE