PPACA requires employers covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act to provide a notice about the upcoming health marketplaces (also called exchanges) to their employees. The notice is due Oct. 1, 2013. On Sept. 11, 2013 the Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it will not penalize employers that do not provide this notice. As a practical matter, this means that providing the notice is now optional.

Employers that have already provided the notice do not need to do anything - it is fine to provide the notice. The change simply is that the DOL will not penalize employers that fail to provide the notice.

Employers that have not yet provided the notice may either distribute the notice or not, as they prefer. Employers that want to increase awareness of the marketplace (perhaps because they expect that some of their employees will need or want to purchase from the marketplace) may still want to provide the notice. Employers with complicated distribution situations, or that are concerned that the notices may generate questions the employer is not staffed to answer, may prefer to not distribute the notice.

The FAQ may be accessed at this link:
Frequently Asked Question - Notice of Coverage Options

Gratuities Added for Large Groups Will Be Taxed as Service Charges

Starting in January, the Internal Revenue Service will begin classifying those automatic gratuities as service charges-which it treats as regular wages, subject to payroll tax withholding-instead of tips, which restaurants leave up to the employees to report as income.

Service charges added to a bill or fixed by the employer that the customer must pay, when paid to an employee, will not constitute a tip but rather constitute non-tip wages. These non-tip wages are subject to social security tax, Medicare tax, and federal income tax withholding. In addition, the employer cannot use these non-tip wages when computing the credit available to employers under section 45B of the Internal Revenue Code, because these amounts are not "tips." Common examples of service charges (sometimes called "auto-gratuities") in service industries are:

• Large Party Charge (restaurant)
• Bottle Service Charge (restaurant and night-club)
• Room Service Charge (hotel and resort)
• Contracted Luggage Assistance Charge (hotel and resort), and
• Mandated Delivery Charge (pizza or other retail deliveries)

For more information related to this topic, visit:  http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc761.html and http://www.irs.gov/irb/2012-26_IRB/ar07.html#d0e170