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Internal Revenue Service Gives Employers a Break

Jerry Geisel

IRS LogoEmployers will not face massive penalties mandated by the health care reform law if they do not offer coverage to all their full-time employees, according to newly proposed Internal Revenue Service regulations.

The massive $2,000-per-full-time-employee penalty will not apply so long as employers offer coverage to at least 95% of their full-time employees and their dependents up to age 26, the IRS said.

Those eagerly awaited regulations, which were issued last week, end more than a year and a half of uncertainty involving a health care reform law provision of crucial importance to employers.

$2,000 penalty

Read literally, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act imposes, effective in 2014, a penalty of up to $2,000 per full-time employee on employers with at least 50 employee even if just one full-time employee is not offered coverage, is eligible for a federal premium subsidy, and used the subsidy to buy coverage in a public health insurance exchange.

That prospect alarmed employers. Without regulatory flexibility,  Click Here to continue article.