ACA Filing Season is Here – What Now?

Despite the recent Texas ruling declaring the Affordable Care Act (ACA) unconstitutional, the health law remains in force for US employers. So be sure to:

• File all related IRS forms for 2018 now
• Keep tracking employee eligibility and affordability around health care benefits for 2019

IRS and ACA filing season is now – what do you need to do? We’ve made a checklist list for you:

     1. Organize your data

• Make sure you store your 2017 filing data before starting on 2018 so that you have it somewhere in case of an IRS audit later on. Some solutions – such as the Integrity Data ACA Solution - have a data retention package you can download.
• Gather your 2018 data – if you’ve been doing this all year long – great! If not, this step will take more time…
  • You’ll need to prove employee eligibility (or not) for healthcare benefits (make sure you use a consistent measurement method) AND you’ll need to prove affordability based on your least cost health care plan. Confused? Check out our ACA educational resources to get up to speed.

If you are using the Integrity Data ACA solution, please review this KB article to see what exactly you need to do.

     2. Use this data to populate your 1095-C

The ACA reporting requirements are burdensome. Getting your 1095-Cs right can be stressful. Integrity Data’s Compliance team, in the trenches since 2012, has put together this primer to help you ensure you have accurate 1095-C forms.

     3. Check your 1095-Cs twice – to avoid any common errors.

There's so much to do during ACA filing season, so sometimes all it takes is a “stupid mistake” to trigger an IRS penalty letter – here are some common ones.

     4. Send out your forms

• 1095-C forms must be sent to employees to by March 4, 2019 (extended from January 31)
• Copies of all 1095-C forms along with your 1094-C to the IRS by:
  • February 28, 2019 if paper filing
  • April 1, 2019 if electronically filing - this is easiest AND required by the mandate if you have over 250 1095-C forms

For any snail mail, be aware that postage rates increase on January 27, 2019!

Still confused? Need urgent help? We've got the answers and the services you need before, during, and after ACA filing season – contact us today!