Pending a couple of imminent federal court decisions, plus any actions the new US Congress may take at the start of the new year, reporting and compliance with the ACA's employer mandate will take effect in a few short weeks.
As a reminder of how and when the employer shared responsibility of the ACA apply, here are some guidelines along with effective dates and applicability.
Effective Dates
When calculating number of employees, keep in mind that caregivers in the in-home care industry can be considered "variable" since their hours of service can be interrupted, changed, or end without notice. As such, the IRS issued guidelines for variable hour employees including a measurement and stability period of up to 12 months plus methods to determine when an employee is considered a rehire after a period of not working for your business.
Examples of Variable Employee Status
- A caveat to variable hour employee status occurs after a period 13 weeks of zero hours of service. When an employee declines or is unavailable for assignments for a minimum of 13 weeks and then accepts an assignment offered by your company, that employee is considered a rehire and begins anew with a measurement period and an administrative period (not to exceed 13 months total) typical of your new employees.
- Another example of when a former employee is considered a rehire is when the duration of weeks of employment is less than the number of weeks of unemployment. This occurs when an employee works at least 4 weeks for your agency and then has zero hours of service for the next 5-12 consecutive weeks.
Employers need to be begin tracking FTE status on January 1, 2015. Generations already has the capability to track and report on FTE's. It is possible the employer mandate could be delayed yet again. And thresholds for full-time status will likely increase from 30 to 40 hours per week. However it ends up, rest assured Generations will have the additional functionality you'll need to make ACA reporting a whole lot easier.
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