On February 9, 2014, the Treasury Department announced that it would be further delaying the employer mandate for businesses with 50 or less employees until 2016. Last July, just before the Independence Day holiday, the White House announced that it was delaying the ObamaCare employer mandates—the law’s requirement that medium and large businesses sponsor health insurance for every worker—until 2015.

Section 1513 of the Affordable Care Act—which adds Section 4980H to the Internal Revenue Code—requires that all “large employers” offer coverage to all of their full-time employees, or face steep fines. “Large employers” are defined as those with 50 or more full-time-equivalent employees.   The delay is meant to “ease the transition to a 30-hour work week,” according to a senior Treasury official, given that the employer mandate counts anyone working 30 hours or more per week as “full-time”.

For businesses with more than 100 workers, the mandate will go into effect in 2015, but businesses will only “need to offer coverage to 70 percent of their full-time employees in 2015 and 95 percent in 2016 and beyond.”

For more details, the final regulations are linked here. IRS “Questions and answers” on the Employer Shared Responsibility Provisions Under the Affordable Care Act are linked here,  and a“fact sheet” from the Treasury Department is linked here.

If you have any questions about implementation of The Affordable Care Act in your business, give Bressler & Company a call at 559.924.1225.