The Obama administration has delayed the Employer Mandate, a key provision of the health care reform law until 2015.
As you may recall, the Employer Mandate requires employers with 50 or more full-time equivalents to offer health insurance to their eligible employees or face a penalty of $2,000 per employee, less the first 30 workers, in 2014. The delay means that employers have an additional year to offer health insurance coverage to their full-time employees before the IRS will assess penalties known as the employer-shared responsibility payment. Any employer-shared responsibility payments will not apply until 2015.
The delay, announced late Tuesday, July 2 comes in response to widespread complaints from businesses and lobbyists about reporting requirements for employers with 50 or more full-time workers.
“We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively,” Mark J. Mazur, assistant secretary for tax policy, wrote in a post that was published on the department’s website late Tuesday.
The government has not indicated that this delay will impact other key parts of the law, including the individual mandate.
We expect a formal notice to be released early next week outlining the delay and its full impact. We will continue to communicate these changes to you as additional information is provided.
The announcement on the Treasury website can be found here.
The announcement from the White House is available here .
