IRS Postpones 1095 Delivery Deadline

The Affordable Care Act imposes a penalty on many families that fail to have enough of what the government classifies as minimum essential coverage, or solid major medical coverage, for enough of the year.

Consumers use 1095 forms to document whether they did enough to keep themselves covered to avoid the ACA individual mandate penalty.

The new federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will set the individual mandate penalty at zero, but TCJA Section 11081 applies only for months beginning after Dec. 31, 2018.

For 2018, the individual mandate penalty will still be equal to 2.5% of modified adjusted gross income over the tax filing threshold.

That means individual taxpayers will still need 1095s when they file their income taxes for 2017 early in 2018.

The TCJA leaves all of the rest of the ACA, including the employer and insurer coverage reporting requirements, in place.

Errors

The IRS now requires employers and employer-sponsored health plans to get detailed information about plan members’ dependents for the 1095 forms.

Employers need the dependents’ full names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers.

Last year, the IRS provided transition relief for employers and insurers that were unable to supply correct, complete information, if they could show they made good-faith efforts to comply with the reporting requirements.

The IRS says it will keep the good-faith relief in place for the 2017 coverage year.

“No relief is provided in the case of reporting entities that do not make a good-faith effort to comply with the regulations or that fail to file an information return or furnish a statement by the due date,” officials say in the new notice.

—Read Panel: Employers Face ACA Social Security Number Error Nightmares on ThinkAdvisor.

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