HSAs (Health Savings Accounts) and FSAs (Flexible Spending Accounts): Are both accounts designed to help employees put aside money to pay for extra medical expenses on a pre-tax basis, both have rules around maximum contributions and permissible distributions, and both have remarkably similar sounding acronyms. However, the similarities for the most part, stop here.
The January 31st W-2 deadline will be here before you know it, and there’s a lot your team needs to prepare between now and then. As we approach 2019 year-end, employers should keep in mind certain health and welfare benefits-related information that must be reported on the W-2 Earnings Statements they provide to employees. The IRS has issued 2019 General Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3.
Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) inhabit a strange place in the employee benefit world: they often exist because of health coverage offered by an employer, employers can contribute to them, but they are ultimately owned by the individual and are not group sponsored health plans. Some strange rules result. In this 35-minute presentation, the Hays Compliance […]
Author: Andrew Wilson, Regulatory and Legislative Specialist, Hays Companies Overview of IRC §105(h) Nondiscrimination Testing Health Flexible Spending Accounts (HFSAs) are a type of tax-advantaged medical account that reimburses employees for eligible health care expenses and are a component of many employer-sponsored cafeteria plans. Specifically, IRC §105(h) prohibits those plans from discriminating in favor of “highly compensated […]
Author: Cindy Niesen, Associate Director: Research & Compliance, Hays Companies Last week, the US Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Treasury and Labor jointly issued an FAQ stating that for 2020 they will not enforce new guidelines (which were incorporated into HHS’s Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters for 2020) regarding drug manufacturers’ assistance […]
Many employers that sponsor self-insured health plans are under the assumption that their Notice of Privacy Practices covers their responsibilities under HIPAA. While the Notice of Privacy Practices is an excellent starting point, there is more to HIPAA Privacy and Security that you need to know.
As the Hays Research and Compliance team looks towards the new year, we want to inform our clients that there will be two plan design changes to consider for 2020: Affordable Care Act out-of-pocket maximum dollar limits, and, High Deductible Health Plan limits. Affordable Care Act Out-Of-Pocket Maximum Dollar Limits This April, the U.S. Department […]
Affordability Safe Harbors The safe harbor percentage for 2019 is 9.86% (IRS per Rev. Proc. 2018-34). The safe harbor percentage for 2020 is 9.78% (IRS per Rev. Proc. 2019-29). Employer Shared Responsibility Tax (employer mandate) – applicable to the 2018 plan year 4980(a) tax for not offering minimum essential coverage to at least 95% of […]
On July 23, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued Revenue Procedure 2019-29 to index the contribution percentages in 2020 for purposes of determining affordability of an employer’s plan under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). For plan years beginning in 2020, employer-sponsored coverage will be considered affordable if the employee’s required contribution for self-only coverage does not exceed: