At the end of July, “about 150 small-business owners, organized by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), will head to Capitol Hill to make the case to members from their states on legislation…,” says a recent article by The Hill. The issue being brought forth is a ruling from 2013 by the IRS that imposes steep penalties on employers who offer tax-free reimbursement to their employees to help them purchase individual health insurance plans. What small-business owners are confused over is the need for a penalty when all they are doing is trying to help their employees to afford their health insurance.
Currently companies under 50 employees are not required to offer health insurance to their employees, but many of them still want to. Although, employer-sponsored coverage is unaffordable to the majority of small-businesses, and the IRS implementing this law has left them without options. The penalty was pushed back by the IRS until July 1st, but as NFIB spokesman Jack Mozloom said, “this is a brand new penalty that nobody knew about, and it’s huge.” Now that the penalty is able to be placed on small-businesses will the IRS be going after the 14% of companies that were simply trying to help their employees?
Common sense would say this was never what the President had in mind when he pushed for the ACA. A law that was put in place to help all Americans obtain health insurance. Even Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said, “our objective and the objective of the Affordable Care Act is to make sure that affordable healthcare is available to all, and I believe that the provisions that you’re referring to are not consistent with that.” So as a bill that has sway with the Houses Ways and Means Committee we could see one of the first major changes to the ACA that will truly better the law for the American people and small-businesses.
Read the full article from The Hill HERE