Nowhere to spend child care FSA funds
On April 28, 2023, the IRS Office of Chief Counsel issued Chief Counsel Advice Memorandum 202317020 (CCA Memo), with an important reminder to employers who provide health and dependent care flexible spending arrangements...more
As a reminder, the deadline for submitting Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) fees is July 31. Employers that sponsor self-insured group health plans should report and pay PCORI fees using the most recently...more
The IRS responded to rising inflation with its recent announcement regarding the limitations applicable to retirement and other benefit plans for 2023. Many limits will have significant increases compared to previous years,...more
As employers and insurers continue to establish programs to enable participants in group health plans to receive at-home COVID-19 tests at no cost, even without a prescription, the Department of Labor (DOL) has issued...more
On March 26, 2021, in Announcement 2021-7, the IRS notified taxpayers that amounts paid for personal protective equipment, such as masks, hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes, for the primary purpose of preventing the spread...more
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (Act), enacted on December 27, 2020, contains a number of provisions that may impact the design and administration of employer-sponsored group health plans and flexible spending...more
The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, generally provides the annual funding for the federal government and, in almost 5,600 pages, contains several important rules giving further COVID-19 relief, including the expansion...more
This chronology traces the major ongoing relief provided by legislation, regulatory action, and other agency guidance to assist ERISA plan participants, fiduciaries, and sponsors during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic through...more
There has been a recent flurry of regulatory guidance issued affecting employee benefit plans. Most of the guidance addresses challenges specifically created by the COVID-19 pandemic, while other guidance is applicable...more
As the COVID-19 global pandemic continues to impact employers, the IRS has been looking for ways to provide some additional flexibility to employer-sponsored benefit plans. In the past week, the IRS released two notices aimed...more
The chart below compares key provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the American Health Care Act (AHCA) and the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA). This chart is current as of July 13, 2017, and as of that date,...more
On December 16, 2015, the IRS issued Notice 2015-87 (the "Notice"), which provides "question-and-answer" guidance regarding how various Affordable Care Act (the "ACA") provisions apply to employer-provided group health plans....more
This is the ninety-eighth issue in our health care reform series of alerts for employers on selected topics in health care reform. This series of Health Care Reform Management Alerts is designed to provide a more in-depth...more
The so-called “Cadillac Tax” (Internal Revenue Code Section 4980I) applies starting in 2018 and was intended to provide a means to address what were perceived as overly rich employer-provided health benefit plan designs, as...more
The “Cadillac Tax” of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is effective for tax years beginning after December 31, 2017. It imposes a 40% excise tax on any “excess benefit” provided to an employee. An excess benefit is the excess,...more
Beginning in 2014, a violation of certain healthcare reform rules, such as offering a health plan with annual dollar limits or not providing full preventive care with no employee cost, requires employers to pay an excise tax...more
Editor's Overview - As it is well known, in Cigna Corp. v. Amara, 131 S. Ct. 1866 (2011), the U.S. Supreme Court identified several forms of appropriate equitable relief that may be available under Section 502(a)(3) of...more
In the summer of 2013, the Supreme Court issued a decision in U.S. v. Windsor, striking down a key provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and eliminating the requirement that federal law recognize only marriages...more
Following Hawaii’s enactment of legislation recognizing same-sex marriage as of and after December 2, 2013 a number of additional pieces of guidance were also issued. Internal Revenue Service’s Frequently Asked Questions...more