IRS unveils health care page for large employers
Original post by Jeff Stimpson, eba.benefitnews.com
The new ACA Information Center for Applicable Large Employers page on IRS.gov features information and resources for employers of all sizes on how the health care law may affect them if they fit the definition of an applicable large employer.
The page includes such sections as trends and resources for ALEs; how to determine if you are an ALE; and outreach materials including FAQs and links to forms, among other materials.
In 2016, ALEs must file an annual information return and provide a statement to each full-time employee reporting whether the company offered health insurance, and if so, what insurance it offered.
RELATED: How to Avoid ACA Filing Penalties
Companies that will file 250 or more information returns for 2015 must e-file the returns through the ACA Information Reports system. Draft Publication 5165, “Guide for Electronically Filing Affordable Care Act Information Returns,” contains information on the communication procedures, transmission formats, business rules and validation procedures for returns that companies must transmit in 2016.
Although most employers will not be affected, companies should determine if they are an ALE, which comprises an average of at least 50 full-time employees (including full-time equivalents) during 2014. A company with fewer than 50 full-time employees may be an ALE if it shares a common ownership with other employers.
A way to take your wellness program beyond paper
Target is taking its wellness program a step further and giving its more than 300,000 employees access to a FitBit tracker. And to sweeten the deal, all employees participating in the FitBit Wellness Program will have a chance to earn money for the charity of their choice.
Employees can sign up to get the FitBit Zip ($59.95) for free or pay the difference for a more advanced FitBit.
Amy McDonough, vice president and general manager of Fitbit's wellness unit, told eWEEK that the deal with Target is one of the largest company-wide wellness arrangements it has made so far.
"The Target announcement was exciting because they are a strategic retail partner for Fitbit products and also a large employer," McDonough said. "It's a great example of how these larger organizations are really putting wellness at the forefront."
Employees who take advantage of the FitBit offer will be grouped into teams for a monthlong challenge. The winning team will get $1 million to funnel into a charity of their choice, Chief Human Resources Officer Jodee Kozlak told CBS News.
Kozlak added that employees will also receive extra discounts on fruits and vegetables, and healthy grab and go snacks will be featured near cash registers.
RELATED: One compelling reason to participate in a wellness plan
Grab the sanitizer, you'll want it after you read this
The digital age is giving germs a new breeding ground. But a little extra cleaning can narrow the playing field according to this article from forbes.com.
When it comes to germs, the gold standard for grossness is the bacteria brewing in our bathrooms.
A variety of studies and reports over the years have put the average bacteria per square inch on a toilet seat somewhere between 50 and almost 300 for household potties and over 1,000 for the public varieties. Yet our own handheld electronics harbor even more bacteria than that.
Smartphones Your smartphone is home to your photos, music, contacts, productivity apps and odds are at least one game featuring a bird, zombie, fruit or farm. Oh, and there’s something else on your smartphone, too — loads of fecal coliforms. Joining the coliforms are Streptococcus, Staphylococcus aureus and a host of other -ococci.
A 2013 project at the University of Surrey perfectly illustrates the situation.
Bacteriology students made imprints of their phones in Petri dishes, and after three days, they saw examples of many of the aforementioned bacteria — plus one particularly hairy case of Bacillius mycoides. It’s really not surprising that the device that goes everywhere from public transportation to public restrooms to not-so-public germ repositories (aka our own homes) is a hot bed for bacteria.
Even back in 2012, when iPhones only offered us 4.5 inches of germ-covered surface,University of Arizona microbiologist Chuck Gerba found cellphones carried 10 times more bacteria than most toilet seats. In 2013, Mashable put that number much higher, claiming that our phones may boast a whopping 25,107 bacteria per square inch. But your smartphone is just one of the worst offenders, not the only one, as this black-light-enhanced demonstration from British business services group Initial reveals.
Here are four more gadgets to rival any restroom when it comes to germs:
Tablets/e-readers — Just think of them as smartphones with fewer features and more surface area when it comes to the germ load tablets and e-readers pack. One iPad tested by British consumer magazine Which? found 600 units of Staphylococcus aureus alone.
Game controllers — With almost 5 times more bacteria than your toilet seat, your game controller has probably still seen scarier stuff (like that boss faceoff with Sephiroth). Still, E. coli is among the potential offenders.
Keyboards — Your keyboard could be home to anywhere from three times more bacteria than your toilet seat to almost three times that of a public toilet seat. Some studies found 3,000 bacteria per square inch on computer keyboards and 1,600 on the average computer mouse.
Remote controls — While likely cleaner than a public toilet seat, remotes still boast a bit more bacteria than some home-throne estimates with 70 present per square inch.
So how do we handle all of this bacterial buildup?
Step one: Remember the bathroom is no place for a phone (that you don’t want covered in fecal coliforms).
Step two: Wash your hands before handling your devices, or at least use a hand sanitizer.
Step three: Use gadget-friendly wipes to keep your favorite handhelds tidy.
But if you only do one thing, let it be step two. After all, you know what else has more bacteria per square inch than a toilet seat? You do. A lot more.
Protect trade secrets, avoid the burn
Original story posted by Roy Maurer on Society for Human Resources Management website.
An appellate court recently struck down a company’s trade secrets misappropriation claims because the company failed to protect its intellectual property (IP) as confidential or proprietary.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled in Head Over Heels Gymnastics Inc. v. Ware that defendant Harriet Ware did not steal her former employer’s trade secrets because the information at issue was never identified as such.
Ware was hired as an at-will employee in 2006 to work with gymnasts at Head Over Heels gymnastics academy in Norwell, Mass. When she accepted the position, Ware acknowledged that she had received and understood the employee handbook, which failed to include a noncompetition covenant or any mention of trade secrets.
Head Over Heels maintained a list of the people who trained at the school, including their names, addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses. The information was available to all employees and was never identified as confidential or proprietary.
When Ware was terminated in 2012, she opened an academy of her own, taking approximately 30 Head Over Heels gymnasts with her.
The company sued, alleging that Ware misappropriated its trade secrets, violated her duty of loyalty by contacting its customers and unfairly competed with it.
The court held that because Ware was an at-will employee, she owed Head Over Heels no particular duty of loyalty and was free to “plan to go into competition with ... her employer and take active steps to do so even while still employed.” Further, absent a noncompetition agreement, Ware’s ability to compete with Head Over Heels was not constrained. Lastly, the court determined that Ware did not misappropriate her employer’s trade secrets because the school’s customer list was not legally considered a trade secret.
The court said that in determining whether information is proprietary to a business, “we look to the conduct of the parties and the nature of the information.” A determination about confidentiality is based on several factors, “including the extent to which the information is known outside of the business, the extent of measures taken by the employer to guard the secrecy of the information and the ease or difficulty with which the information could be properly acquired.”
Head Over Heels argued that everyone at the company understood that its customer list was intended solely for the purpose of the business and was neither publicly known nor available.
Nevertheless, the court ruled that, “as a matter of law, the [customer lists] are not trade secrets or confidential proprietary information. It is undisputed that the [customer lists] were available to all staff and employees and were distributed to Head Over Heels’ gymnasts and their families. The broad dissemination and availability of the [customer lists] indicates that Head Over Heels was not trying to guard the secrecy of the information. Importantly, much of the information found in the [customer lists] was readily available in the public domain and could have been easily obtained.”
The court therefore deemed Head Over Heels’ trade secret claims “unrealistic.”
Employer Takeaways
What can employers do to protect against confidential information being used by a former employee? “For starters, if you have confidential information, let everyone with access to it know that it is confidential, either through a designation in the company handbook, when they are given access to the information for the first time or any other obvious way,” said Shepard Davidson, a partner at Burns & Levinson LLP based in Boston.
Limiting access to the information and keeping it secure are additional ways to preserve confidentiality, he said. Training and reminding departing employees about their confidentiality obligations during exit interviews are also good ideas.
“The good news is that a company’s efforts in this regard are measured by a standard of reasonableness, not perfection. So if you have information that you believe is important, confidential or propriety, take some time to set up reasonable systems to protect that information,” Davidson said.
Follow Roy Maurer on Twitter at @SHRMRoy
The Viability of Banning Salary Negotiations
Originally posted by Joanne Sammer on Society for Human Resource Management's website
When Internet company Reddit decided in April 2015 to ban all salary negotiations for both new hires and existing employees, the move garnered a wave of media reporting—and social media discussion.
Although Reddit is not the only company to adopt this policy, the difference is that Reddit tied its salary negotiation ban to an effort to close the pay gap between male and female employees. The fact that Reddit’s then-CEO Ellen Pao had just lost a high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit against a Silicon Valley venture capital firm gave the announcement particular significance. Three months later, Pao resigned as interim CEO under pressure, with some lauding her as a fighter against sexism while others charged her with mismanagement during her controversial eight-month tenure.
Regardless of Pao’s troubles, her decision to ban salary negotiations fired up the conversation about pay disparities. Now, it is fair to ask some key questions about the viability of this no-negotiation approach to compensation.
Reddit, which has about 70 employees, operates in the Internet/technology space in Silicon Valley. Although the company had operated with an informal no-negotiation policy, it was Pao who tied it to the gender pay gap. “She provided more structure to the way it works and formalized the policy,” according to Heather Wilson, a company spokeswoman.
Under the formal policy, Reddit offers new hires and employees set salaries based on competitive market rates for the positions they hold. “The employee is given a choice within that salary to select either more pay or more equity,” Wilson noted. “But the number is the same, just the make-up of pay-to-equity can be determined by the employee.”
Although Reddit is open to changing the policy in the future if circumstances change, “so far it seems to be working quite well,” Wilson said. “Reddit is known as a good place to work and has a strong internal culture, and the pay policy is a part of setting that culture and is in line with the company's core values.”
No Negotiating = Better Relationships?
A key question about any effort to ban salary negotiations inevitably raises questions about the impact on recruitment. Does banning negotiations place an employer at a disadvantage in the hiring process?
For Reddit, the reaction has been positive. “Since news of the policy has spread, Reddit has seen an uptick in candidates seeking to work at the company citing the policy,” according to Wilson.
Gender aside, there are plenty of people who are uncomfortable negotiating and could be attracted to an organization where negotiating salary is not expected. Perhaps that is why other organizations have also had success in hiring after banning negotiations.
Fathom Healthcare, a Valley View, Ohio-based firm that provides marketing services for hospitals and health systems, has banned salary negotiations but not as a way to close pay gaps. The company simply sees negotiating as a negative in the employment relationship.
Negotiating salary “starts the [employment] relationship on a note of distrust and dishonesty,” said Bill Balderaz, president of Fathom Healthcare. “If the company leads with a lower number than it is willing to pay, it is saying, ‘I think you are worth x, but I'm going to offer y and see if you'll take it.’ ”
On the other side of the table, Balderaz sees candidates who name one salary level but settle for another as “leading with a lie.”
To avoid this, Balderaz suggested that employers make only one best and final offer, based on a fair level of compensation. Fathom Healthcare, which has about 40 employees, has had its no-negotiation policy in place since its inception in 2006 and has made 60 or more hires at different levels and with different skill sets since then, with no trouble attracting candidates, according to Balderaz.
Balderaz noted that the company’s decision to make exceptions to the no-negotiation policy for a few candidates over the years has demonstrated the value of the ban. “We made a handful of exceptions in the early days and regretted it each time,” he said. “Salary negotiations inherently set a tone of distrust and [establish an] us-vs.-them attitude.”
Transparency Is Key
In announcing Reddit’s policy, Pao specifically highlighted the idea that the no-negotiation policy would help close the gender pay gap. Her rationale is that women are uncomfortable negotiating pay, frequently don’t negotiate at all and are often perceived negatively when they do negotiate.
Yet some critics of salary negotiation bans argue that these employers are fighting the wrong battle, and they’ve pointed out that the pay gap battle is not limited to gender. Significant pay gaps also exist for black and Hispanic workers, for instance, regardless of gender.
“You have women and people of color who are historically underpaid relative to their white male counterparts,” said Fatimah Gilliam, founder and CEO of The Azara Group, a leadership consulting firm in New York City. “I understand the intent to want to equalize things but I do not believe that the answer is to ban negotiation altogether.”
Moreover, banning salary negotiations does not necessarily guarantee fairness. There is nothing stopping an organization or certain managers from continuing to make higher, nonnegotiated pay offers to some applicants and not to others.
That is why some argue that increasing the transparency surrounding market-based pay levels is the more pressing need. “What enables people to get more money is having a better sense of what companies are paying,” said Gilliam. “If companies simply ban salary negotiations, they instantly have even more leverage. Saying that you cannot negotiate your compensation just limits the amount of leverage you have as a candidate to advocate for yourself.”
While certainly not widespread, some employers are starting to open the compensation books. Social media company Buffer publishes its open equity formula online, including an explanation of each element used to set pay and equity levels and a spreadsheet listing the compensation level and value for all 37 employees, as well as salary and equity formulas and calculations. This transparency effort began last year with the disclosure of the salaries of all employees.
7 Unexpected Signs You're Totally Stressed
Originally posted by Emma Haak on Oprah.com
You're Hearing Sounds That No One Else Does
Why it could be stress: Exactly how tinnitus is linked to stress isn't clear, but research in BMC Public Health found that people who were worried about being fired or moved to another job were more likely to report tinnitus (hearing a noise like ringing, buzzing, clicking or even hissing) or hearing loss than those who felt secure in their roles.
Other possible causes: Earwax buildup, really loud noises and age-related hearing loss. If it's happening often enough to bother you, see an ear nose and throat specialist to nail down the cause.
You've Gone From Outspoken to Wallflower at Work
Why it could be stress: Stress can make you feel impulsive (it affects brain areas that keep our behavior in check), but it can also make you feel the opposite way, triggering withdrawal and a loss of confidence that's usually most noticeable at the office, says Susan Evans, PhD, professor of psychology in clinical psychology at Weill Cornell Medical College. "You may find yourself in a meeting where you'd normally voice your opinions without hesitation, but now you're holding back because you're not sure if what you have to say makes sense," she says. A small study in Neurocase found that simply watching a stressful movie for 30 minutes (in this case, Saving Private Ryan) made it harder to complete challenging word-association tasks than viewing more lighthearted fare.
Other possible causes: You guessed it—depression. Withdrawal is a classic symptom, but usually comes with other signs like a loss of interest in your favorite activities, feelings of hopelessness or changes in appetite.
All It Takes Is One Stranger's Sneeze and Suddenly You're Sick
Why it could be stress: Your immunity takes a hit when you're stressed, research shows, leaving you less capable of fending off whatever virus is making its way through your house or office. In one study, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stressed-out people were twice as likely to get sick after being exposed to the common cold. The stressed folks also produced more pro-inflammatory compounds once the virus was in their systems, potentially making sniffles and sneezes worse.
Other possible causes: A consistent lack of sleep can also hamper your immune system. If you're sleeping well, not feeling stressed, but find that your sick-day tally keeps growing, ask your doctor whether a more serious issue could be to blame.
You Have an All-or-Nothing Relationship with the Bathroom
Why it could be stress: Things may stop moving because your body is diverting energy to more essential organs and systems to help you survive, says David Spiegel, MD, director of the Center on Stress and Health at Stanford School of Medicine. And research suggests that diarrhea may be triggered by the gut's response to a chemical called CRF that the brain releases under stress (your colon is full of CRF receptors).
Other possible causes: Backups can develop from too little fiber (women 50 and younger need 25 grams per day; 51 and up need 21 grams). As for diarrhea, non-stress-related causes include stomach viruses, contaminated food and certain medications. You could also be eating foods that just don't sit well in your stomach, like these 6 items that many people have trouble digesting.
You're Doing Some Very Weird Things in Your Sleep
Why it could be stress: It's rare, and would only happen under extreme stress, but parasomnias (abnormal events like sleepwalking, sleep eating and night terrors) due to stress, can happen, says Rajita Sinha, PhD, director of the Yale Stress Center. Blame a ramped-up, always-on-alert sympathetic nervous system. It flips on your fight-or-flight response, and in the case of incredibly stressed-out folks, it can overpower your body's calming system during sleep, leading to unusual activity, explains Spiegel. "I had one stress patient," he says, "who would get up in the middle of the night when he was traveling for work, get dressed, go down to the hotel lobby and talk to people, and have no recollection of it in the morning."
Other possible causes: Obstructive sleep apnea, medications and certain (though rare) brain disorders—your doctor can help you figure out which one is causing your sleep disturbances.
Your Periods are Leveling You
Why it could be stress: Your stressed body is pouring out chemicals that help you take action and dialing down production of those that would alleviate your distress, says Sinha. And that means you'll feel pain more acutely, including discomfort from your menstrual cycle. Women with higher levels of perceived stress reported more severe symptoms, including cramping and pain, during their periods, found one study in the Journal of Women's Health.
Other possible causes: See your doctor to rule out causes like fibroids, a copper IUD, pelvic inflammatory disease and endometriosis.
You've Got Numbness or Tingling in Your Arms and Hands
Why it could be stress: You may be holding all that tension you're feeling in your neck and shoulders, a very common problem for women, says Holly Phillips, MD, an internist in New York and a medical contributor for CBS News. With major stress, the tension can lead to compression of a particular bundle of nerves that goes into your arm, causing that numbness and tingling. "Leaning over computers and smartphones for hours a day, and being stressed out while we're doing it, can make these muscle issues worse," she explains. "Our ears should be directly over our shoulders, but with this poor posture, they're a few inches forward. It's an awkward and pain-inducing position."
Other possible causes: Carpal tunnel syndrome—it can lead to numbness and tingling, too. Any task that involves flexing your wrist over and over can cause it. Another potential but less common culprit is nerve damage. But the sources can be serious (diabetes, infections, trauma and autoimmune conditions, to name a few), so if you notice these symptoms, call your doctor and make an appointment to get checked out.
Benefit offerings impacted by millennials
Originally posted by Mike Nesper on August 31, 2015 on benefitnews.com.
Generation Y surpassed Generation X this year, to become the largest population of employees in the workforce — more than one in three U.S. workers are between the ages of 18 and 34, according the Pew Research Center. And those 53.5 million millennials are influencing the benefits employers are offering.
Millennials want more customization, says Meredith Ryan-Reid, senior vice president of MetLife’s group, voluntary and worksite benefits. Employers feel the same: 54% rated benefits customization as extremely important, according to MetLife’s 13th annual employee benefits trends study.
Millennials like variety, so employers should offer a broad range of benefits, says Joe Ellis, senior vice president of CBIZ Benefits and Insurance Services. The same isn’t true for networks. Millennials aren’t particularly concerned with narrow networks — they go to whoever is included, Ellis says.
That’s a good thing, especially as more employers are reducing network accessibility as a way to cut costs. This year, 11% of employers introduced narrow network plans as a cost containment tactic, a 7% increase from 2014, according to the Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. recent benefits strategy and benchmarking survey. Cost-sharing and changing carriers were the most frequently used strategies for controlling health care costs.
Both methods have a limited shelf life. Only a certain amount can be pushed onto employees, and recent mergers have reduced the list of major U.S. health insurance companies to just three, says Bill Ziebell, executive vice president of Gallagher Benefit Services.
Employers are also using online enrollment, telemedicine and mandatory specialty pharmacy programs to rein in costs — but premiums are still rising. Six in 10 employers reported increases of 4% or more during their most recent renewal, Gallagher found, and 23% of respondents saw double-digit increases.
Many employers are focused on medical renewals and others are hampered by Affordable Care Act regulations, Ziebell says. “It’s hard to be strategic,” he says, and that’s exactly the help advisers need to give their clients. Advisers and their employer clients should take an all-inclusive look at benefits and have a plan for several years into the future, Ziebell says.
Millennials impacted by the recession
The recession had a big impact on millennials, who entered the job market at a tough time, and many aren’t relying on government safety nets being in place later in life, Ryan-Reid says. In fact, nearly one-quarter of Americans expect no Social Security benefits, a Bankrate.com survey found.
That has spurred millennials to take a greater interest in employer offerings. “They’re craving information,” Ryan-Reid says. However, some employers aren’t delivering.
Just 38.4% of millennials strongly agree that their company is effectively educating them about their benefits, the MetLife study found. When presented with the statement, “I am confident I made the right decisions at my last annual enrollment,” less than half of millennials, 48.5%, strongly agreed, compared to 54% of Gen X employees and 62% of baby boomers.
Access to information that’s easy to understand increases confidence among all generations, MetLife found. For millennails, they prefer education via their provider’s website, a benefits handbook and in-person meetings. “In general, most people prefer to talk to someone,” Ryan-Reid says.
How Many Employers Could be Affected by the Cadillac Plan Tax?
Originally posted by Gary Claxton and Larry Levitt on August 25, 2015 on kff.org.
As fall approaches, we can expect to hear more about how employers are adapting their health plans for 2016 open enrollments. One topic likely to garner a good deal of attention is how the Affordable Care Act’s high-cost plan tax (HCPT), sometimes called the “Cadillac plan” tax, is affecting employer decisions about their health benefits. The tax takes effect in 2018.
The potential of facing an HCPT assessment as soon as 2018 is encouraging employers to assess their current health benefits and consider cost reductions to avoid triggering the tax. Some employers announced that they made changes in 2014 in anticipation of the HCPT, and more are likely to do so as the implementation date gets closer. By making modifications now, employers can phase-in changes to avoid a bigger disruption later on. Some of the things that employers can do to reduce costs under the tax include:
- Increasing deductibles and other cost sharing;
- Eliminating covered services;
- Capping or eliminating tax-preferred savings accounts like Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs), Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), or Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs);
- Eliminating higher-cost health insurance options;
- Using less expensive (often narrower) provider networks; or
- Offering benefits through a private exchange (which can use all of these tools to cap the value of plan choices to stay under the thresholds).
For the most part these changes will result in employees paying for a greater share of their health care out-of-pocket.
In addition to raising revenue to fund the cost of coverage expansion under the ACA, the HCPT was intended to discourage employers from offering overly-generous benefit plans and help to contain health care spending. Health benefits offered through work are not taxed like other compensation, with the result that employees may receive tax benefits worth thousands of dollars if they get their health insurance at work. Economists have long argued that providing such tax benefits without a limit encourages employers to offer more generous benefit plans than they otherwise would because employees prefer to receive additional benefits (which are not taxed) in lieu of wages (which are). Employees with generous plans use more health care because they face fewer out-of-pocket costs, and that contributes to the growth in health care costs.
The HCPT taxes plans that exceed certain cost thresholds beginning in 2018. The 2018 thresholds are $10,200 for self-only (single) coverage and $27,500 for other than self-only coverage, and after that they generally increase annually with inflation. The amount of the tax is 40 percent of the difference between the total cost of health benefits for an employee in a year and the threshold amount for that year.
While the HCPT is often described as a tax on generous health insurance plans, it actually is calculated with respect to each employee based on the combination of health benefits received by that employee, and can be different for different employees at the same employer and even for different employees enrolled in the same health insurance plan. While final regulations have not yet been issued, the cost for each employee generally will include:
- The average cost for the health insurance plan (whether insured or self-funded);
- Employer contributions to an (HSA), Archer medical spending account or HRA;
- Contributions (including employee-elected payroll deductions and non-elective employer contributions) to an FSA;
- The value of coverage in certain on-site medical clinics; and
- The cost for certain limited-benefit plans if they are provided on a tax-preferred basis.
The inclusion of FSAs here is important. FSAs generally are structured to allow employees the opportunity to divert some of their pay to pretax health benefits, which means that they can avoid payroll and income taxes on money they expect to use for health care. Employees often are permitted to elect any amount of contribution up to a cap (which is $2,550 in 2015), which means that the amount of benefits for an employee subject to the HCPT in a year could vary depending on their FSA election.
The amount and structure of the HCPT provide a strong incentive for employers to avoid hitting the thresholds. The tax rate of 40 percent is high relative to the tax that many employees would pay if the benefits were merely taxed like other compensation, and the ACA does not allow the taxpayers (e.g., the employer) to deduct the tax as a cost of doing business, which can significantly increase the tax incidence for for-profit companies. Further, to avoid the perception that this was a new tax on employees, the HCPT was structured as a tax on the service providers of the health benefit plans providing benefits an employee: insurers in the case of insured health benefit plans; employers in the case of HSAs and Archer MSAs; and the person that administers the benefits, such as third party administrators, in the case of other health benefits. While it is generally expected that insurers and service providers will pass the cost of the tax back to the employer, doing so may not always be straightforward. Because there can be numerous service providers with respect to an employee, the excess amount must be allocated across providers. In some cases, it may not be possible to know whether or not the benefits provided to an employee will exceed the threshold amount until after the end of a year (for example, in the case of an experience-rated health insurance plan), which means that service providers may need to bill the employer retroactively for the cost of the tax they must pay. Amounts that employers provide to reimburse service providers for the HCPT create taxable income for the service provider, which the parties will want to account for in the transaction. The IRS has requested comments on potential methods for determining tax liability among benefit administrators, including a way that could assign the responsibility to the employer in cases other that insured benefit plans. The proposed approach could simplify administration of the tax.
To read the full story go to the Kaiser Family Foundation website at kff.org.
How to Avoid ACA Filing Penalties
Originally posted by Michael Weiskirch on August 21, 2015 on eba.benefitnews.com.
The 6055 and 6056 tax filing has many employers and their advisers up in arms for the upcoming tax filing. The increased penalty amounts announced in July are alarming. A single 1095-C form violation could result in a penalty of $500 per form, with no cap if the employer shows intentional disregard — basically skipping out on the filing for 2015. A 500-person firm in this case would pay $250,000 in penalties. The good news is many employers can get a break of some sort for 2015. These are listed below:
Good faith effort
For 2015, employers who file will have protection even if their filing is incorrect or incomplete, as long as they show they made good faith efforts to comply with the ACA reporting requirements. A “good-faith effort” is defined as employer simply attempting to complete the forms. Keep in mind that the good-faith effort for 2015 tax year will disappear in 2016, thus penalties will apply for incorrect information in subsequent years.
Transition relief
Transition relief is designed to shield employers from shared responsibility penalties for all or part of 2015, reducing the exposure of the (A) $2,000 or (B) $3,000 penalties. This relief is not granted automatically and only applies for the 2015 tax year. To take advantage of this relief, the employer needs to complete line 22 of the 1094-C form or line 16 of the 1095-C for non-calendar year plans. With HCM File, we advise our clients to incorporate transition relief into their filing where appropriate. There are four flavors of transition relief, each essentially providing a bye for the months the relief is designated.
1) Qualifying offer method: Employer who offers MEC which does not exceed 9.5% of the federal poverty level to at least 95% of full-time employees.
2) 4980H for Employers with 50-99 Employees: Employer averaged between 50-99 employees
3) 4980H for 100+ Employers: Employer offered coverage to at least 70% of full-time employees
4) Non-Calendar Year Relief: Employers with plans that renew February-December in 2015.
30-day extension mirroring
The extension process for W2s and 1099s, the IRS will allow a 30-day extension as long as you can demonstrate certain hardship conditions and file Form 8809 by Jan. 31, 2016. Getting the final health plan participation and completing 1095-C forms for each health eligible employees, COBRA and retirees (if self-funded) is a lot to accomplish in a short window. As many employers scramble to complete their end of year payroll and compile the information for 6055/56, a good number of employers are looking to take advantage of the extension especially in the first year. Unlike the good faith effort and transition relief, the 30-day extension can be utilized in any tax year assuming the employer qualifies.
Also see: "Why get involved in ACA reporting?"
While good faith effort, transition relief and 30-day extensions are tools that employers may take advantage of to shield them from potential penalties, they should not be viewed as a method to evade penalties in all situations. Employers should strive for compliant, accurate and penalty-free filing without the support of any safety nets.
How 'casual Fridays' suppress creativity
Originally posted by Melissa Dahl on May 29, 2015 on cnn.com.
(Science of Us) - I used to work with a guy who refused to let his sartorial standards drop just because it was nearly the weekend. Instead of Casual Fridays, he tried to institute its opposite: Fancy Fridays. This did not exactly catch on widely in the office, and yet he might've been onto something. A recent paper in Social Psychological and Personality Science argues in favor of dressing up, finding that when people felt more formally dressed as compared to their surrounding peers, they tended to think more creatively.
The psychological meaning of clothing is something academics have been curious about for more than a century, particularly the influential Harvard psychologist William James, who believed the clothes you wear ranked just under your physical body, but above your immediate family, in contributing to your understanding of who you are.
And modern research has borne this idea out, suggesting that clothes indeed influence self-perception. People who feel dressed-up are more likely to think of themselves as competent and rational; in contrast, those who are dressed casually tend to describe their personality accordingly, as friendly and laid-back. Recently, a team of researchers from Columbia University and California State University, Northridge, took this idea a step further and conducted a series of five experiments that suggest the clothes we wear don't just influence the way we think about ourselves; they also seem to influence the way we think, period.
Specifically, they found that people who felt more formally dressed than the people around them were more likely to think abstractly. "And by that we mean, basically, holistic or big-picture thinking — so not focusing on the details but seeing bigger ideas, seeing how things connect from a more high-level perspective," said Michael Slepian, first author on the new paper, which was recently published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
In one experiment, for example, Slepian asked college students to come to the lab with two sets of clothing: an outfit they'd wear to a job interview, and an outfit they'd wear to class. (These were college students, so even the formal clothing they brought wasn't too fancy — more like business casual, Slepian said — while the casual outfits tended toward shorts and flip-flops.) Some of the students were told to change into their interview clothes, and others were told to change into their casual ones. Both groups then answered two questionnaires, the first one asking them to rate how formally dressed they felt in comparison to the other students. The second was meant to determine their cognitive-processing style, asking them whether a given item fit within a particular category. For example, abstract thinkers — again, these are people who are more focused on the broader, bigger picture — would be more likely to answer that, sure, a camel could belong under the "vehicle" category; concrete thinkers, on the other hand, would disagree, sticking to a stricter definition of the category.
As Slepian and the rest of the research team suspected, those who'd been asked to wear their formal clothing were more likely to give answers indicating abstract thinking, something that can be explained in a couple of ways. One, being more formally dressed than those slobs around you probably makes you feel a bit surer of yourself, which, in turn, might make you feel more in control, or more like a leader.
And when people feel powerful, they're more likely to engage in abstract thinking, previous researchhas shown. It also just makes intuitive sense, Slepian said. "Someone who is a leader has a big picture of where they want their team to go, what they want their team to be working on," he explained. They have the big picture, and they have to figure out how to implement it. That's why power leads to abstract thinking — when you're in a position of power, you don't have to focus on the details."
It also could be something about the novelty of dressing up, if it's something you're not used to (like if, for instance, you're a college student). In that case, perhaps the effects would wear off over time if you started dressing more formally as a habit. This isn't something the researchers tested explicitly for, but Slepian said he buys it as a valid alternative explanation.
But does it work the other way around, in that dressing like a slob reduces your ability to think big picture? (A question I am personally interested in, as I started writing this post while clad in gym shorts and a T-shirt I got for free at a race last year.) Slepian won't go that far, as that's not what the data showed, but he did admit that since working on this research project, he's stepped up his own wardrobe a bit. "When I work at home, I maybe dress a little nicer now," he said.