2016 Tax Year Changes for Form 1094-C

Yesterday we learned about the new changes coming to Form 1095-C in 2017 for the 2016 filing season. And we’d certainly be remiss to not mention the changes to its accompanying form, Form 1094-C.

Transmittal Form 1094-C
As you may know, Form 1094-C is the transmittal form of Form 1095-C, and it summarizes the data found in its accompanying ACA return. It’s filed by Applicable Large Employers who are required to offer health insurance coverage to their fifty or more full-time employees. You don’t need to send a copy of Form 1094-C to your employees with their Form 1095-C, but it is required to have the Form 1094-C to the IRS by their ACA filing deadlines, which are:

• February 28, 2017, for paper filers and
• March 31, 2017, for e-filers.

So now that we’ve got all the basics out of the way…

The Changes
There are two form revisions to Form 1094-C that you’ll want to make note of:

• Line 22, box B has been designated “Reserved” and should not be used. This box used to indicate the Qualifying Offer Method Transition Relief, which is no longer available for 2016.
• “Section 4980H” was put in before “Full-Time Employee Count for ALE Member” in Part III, column (b), to remind those filing that the section 4980H definition of “full-time employee” should be used for filling out this column, not any other definition an ALE may use for other purposes.

So there you have it. And don’t forget that ExpressIRSForms is here to guide you through all the changes the ACA Forms encounter while helping you e-file them accurately and on time!


For more information on e-filing your ACA Forms with ExpressIRSForms, check out our website, or give us a call! Our friendly support team is here to help by phone (704-684-4751) and live chat Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. EST and by email 24/7 at support@ExpressIRSForms.com.

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How to Report COBRA on ACA Forms

When you’re working on your ACA Forms 1094 and 1095, you might run into a situation where you’ll need to report COBRA coverage information for your employee and/or their spouse and dependent(s). COBRA stands for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, the federal law that provides workers with the right to continued coverage in a group health plan.

How you report this COBRA coverage will depend on whether your employee enrolls in the coverage and whether the employee was offered coverage because of termination or a reduction in hours. If the employee doesn’t enroll in COBRA coverage, that’s easy enough: you’ll report no offer of coverage beginning with the month the employment was terminated throughout the remainder of the year on Form 1095-C, Part II. In order to avoid penalties for those months, you’ll code the former employee as not a full-time employee (Code 2B).

Now, if your former employee does enroll in COBRA coverage, you’re going to have to indicate that you made an offer of coverage for all the months the employee was covered, those under the original group plan and the ones the employee enrolled in COBRA. Use the same code indicator for all of these months. Your cost of coverage should change in this section from the lowest cost employee-only premium to the COBRA single premium.

If the individual is still employed and they’ve accepted your offer of COBRA coverage as a result of a reduction in hours, you’ll still report that an offer of coverage was made for all the months under the original group plan and COBRA. Even if the ongoing employee didn’t enroll in the COBRA coverage, you’ll need to report your offer. Your indicator codes - which will be different for the months the employee’s hours were reduced - will alert the IRS as to why the COBRA single premium is listed for the months COBRA was offered.

You can e-file your 1095-C Forms (COBRA offers and all!) with ExpressIRSForms. Just log into your account and select the ACA Forms option to get started. If you have any questions, you can give us a call Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. EDT, at (704) 684-4751; or send us an email anytime at support@ExpressIRSForms.com.



Looking for something a little less hands on? Check out ExpressACAForms, our full-service ACA e-filing solution.

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ACA Form 1094-C Certification of Eligibility

Applicable Large Employers (ALEs) may be eligible for relief from certain requirements as they transition to payroll and benefits systems that meet Affordable Care Act standards.

In order to indicate to the IRS that they were eligible for this relief on their 2015 ACA return, ALEs will check a box indicating which Certification of Eligibility they qualified for on Line 22 of Form 1094-C. In this post, we’ve compiled a list of the four methods of relief found on Line 22 and how eligibility for them can be met.

Qualifying Offer Method (Box A)
A Qualifying Offer applies if you (the ALE) made a minimum value (MV) offer to at least one full-time employee for each month of the year they were full-time. Additionally, you would’ve needed to offer minimum essential coverage (MEC) to the employee’s spouse and dependent(s) that cost them no more than 9.5% of the federal poverty line (FPL).

Qualifying Offer Method Transition Relief (Box B)
This method of relief is available for the 2015 tax year only. An ALE must have made a qualifying offer (as described above) to 70% of their full-time employees for one or more months of the year. Filing Bonus: If you check Box A or B on your 1094-C, you can use a simplified, generic Form 1095-C instead of individual forms.

Section 4980H Transition Relief (Box C)
Section 4980H relief has two types, depending on just how LE of an ALE you are:

• Option 1: ALEs with 50-99 FT employees are eligible if they didn’t reduce their workforce or their employees’ hours of work in order to meet ACA compliance requirements. They also can’t have reduced or eliminated coverage offered.
• Option 2: ALEs with 100+ FT employees with this eligibility are subject to assessable penalty reduced by 80 employees instead of the standard 30.

98% Offer Method (Box D)
ALEs are eligible to check this box if they made an offer of affordable coverage (that meets MV qualifications) for every month of the year to at least 98% of the employees for whom they’re filing 1095-C forms. These can be enrolled full-time and part-time employees.

If you’re eligible for one of these relief methods, be sure to indicate so on your Form 1094-C. ExpressIRSForms can help prompt you to do this when you e-file your ACA Forms through our system, saving you from making any filing errors. For help getting started, you can call our support team in Rock Hill, SC at (704) 684-4751 Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. EDT. After hours, we offer assistance via our email, support@ExpressIRSForms.com.





Looking for something a little less hands-on? Check out ExpressACAForms, our full-service ACA e-filing option.

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ACA Forms 1094-C and 1095-C

Welcome to Part Three of the ExpressIRSForms blog series on the soon-to-be required Affordable Care Act IRS forms. Last week we went over Forms 1094-B and 1095-B, which are filed by health insurance providers; and today, we’ll dive right on into Form 1095-C for Applicable Large Employers!

Who Needs to File?
Well, as we said above, Form 1095-C is filed by Applicable Large Employers. But just who is “Applicable”? When we use the term “Applicable Large Employer,” or ALE, we’re referring to employers with 50 or more full-time employees, including full-time equivalent employees, in the previous year. ALEs are required to file Form 1095-C by the ACA and the IRS in order to report offers of health coverage and enrollment in health coverage for their employees. Additionally, Form 1095-C is used in determining whether an employer owes payment under the employer shared responsibility provisions under section 4980H.

If you’re an employer who offers employer-sponsored self-insured coverage to your employees, you’ll also need to report information to the IRS on Form 1095-C. You’ll report information to the IRS and your employees about their minimum essential coverage (MEC) under the employer plan.

What Information is Needed?
In order to complete Form 1095-C, you will need the following information:

• The name, SSN, and complete address of your employee
• The name, EIN, complete address, and contact number of the employer
• Plan Start Month for the specific employee
• The Offer of Coverage code applicable to this employee
• The amount of the Employee Share of Lowest Cost Monthly Premium per month
• If applicable, a Section 4980H Safe Harbor code
• The names and SSNs or birth dates for all covered individuals (spouse, dependents, etc.) and the months in which they were covered

E-Filing vs. Paper Filing
As an e-filing service, we’re a little biased about which way we think you should go when you’re filing. But don’t just take our word that e-filing is the better way to go; the IRS recommends everyone e-file as well, since it’s quicker, easier, and cuts down on errors and paper usage. And keep in mind that if you have 250 or more returns to file, you’re required to e-file and could face penalties if you don’t.

If you decide to stick to your guns and paper file anyway, remember that Form 1094-C must be sent along to the IRS with all of your 1095-C forms. Form 1094-C, the Transmittal of Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage Information Returns form, is essentially a cover sheet for your 1095-C forms. On this form, you’ll include all of your identifying contact information, the total number of Forms 1095-C you’re submitting, and the total number of full-time employees enrolled in at least the MEC for each month. When you e-file with ExpressIRSForms, we’ll automatically fill out a virtual copy of Form 1094-C based on the information you enter and send it to the IRS with your 1095-C forms.

Form 1095-C Deadlines
As an employer, you’re probably already used to mailing out information returns (like W-2s) in January and again in February or March. The ACA forms are due around the same deadlines. Forms 1095-C are sent out at the beginning of each year to report on the previous year, and your employees will need to receive their copy by January 31st. In 2016, however, these forms will be due by February 1st, since January 31st is a Sunday.

If you’re paper filing, your Forms 1094- and 1095-C will need need to be filed with the IRS by the last day of February following the year in which the returns reference. And if you’re e-filing, these forms will need to be sent to the IRS by March 31st.

If you have any other questions regarding Form 1095-C, any of the other ACA forms, or the e-filing process, don’t hesitate to reach out to the ExpressIRSForms support team. We’re available by phone (704-839-2270) and live chat Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST. We’re also available 24/7 via email support at support@expressirsforms.com!

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Affordable Care Act Forms: An Overview

Coming this tax season to the best* IRS-authorized e-filing service (ExpressIRSForms) are the newly required Affordable Care Act Forms 1094-B, 1094-C, 1095-B, and 1095-C. These forms were created by the IRS so that insurance providers (including government-sponsored programs, eligible employer-sponsored plans, and individual market plans) could report certain health care coverage information to the IRS and to their recipients.

So what are these forms all about anyway? Well, ExpressIRSForms is here to answer your questions. Our next few blogs will be ACA-themed to get you as prepared as possible for filing these new forms! Today, we’ll start with the basics and a general overview of the forms.

Form 1094
Form 1094 is the transmittal form, and will normally only be filled out by you if you’re paper filing. Most e-filing services (ExpressIRSForms included) will automatically fill out Form 1094 for you and transmit it to the IRS along with your other forms. Form 1094 contains a general summary of the information about the minimum essential health care coverage you offer found on the 1095 forms you submit.

Form 1095
You can think of a 1095 form as a W-2 for health care coverage: it breaks down the health care coverage offered to and received by your recipients by month for the previous year, and you’ll send a copy of it to your recipient while the original goes to the IRS. All of your 1095 forms are sent together to the IRS along with the 1094 transmittal form.

B or C?
The letters attached to the numbers 1094 and 1095 on these forms help the IRS to identify your contractual relationship with your health care recipients. If you’re a health insurance issuer or carrier, you’ll file Forms 1094-B and 1095-B. If you’re an Applicable Large Employer (ALE), you’ll file Forms 1094-C and 1095-C. ALEs are employers with at least 50 full-time employees or full-time equivalents; these employers must offer at least the minimum essential coverage of health care to their employees according to the Affordable Care Act.

If you want to go ahead and get started working with new ACA forms, you can use ExpressIRSForms to begin filing the optional 2014 year absolutely free! And since our software is cloud-based, all of your contact information will be saved in your Address Book; that way, in a few months when you’re working on your 2015 returns, you can be finished in a matter of clicks.

And if you have any questions about the ACA forms or e-filing for any of our other information returns, feel free to reach out to us! We’re available by live chat via our website and by phone at (704) 839-2270, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST. We also offer 24/7 email support at support@expressirsforms.com.

*Study results may be biased

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ACA Forms: What Your Employees Should Know

When we talk about the new Affordable Care Act IRS Forms 1094 and 1095, we tend to be focused a lot on the employers and the providers of minimum essential health care coverage. It’s understandable; a lot of things are changing this year, which means a lot of new responsibilities for providers and employers.

But what about the employees? What do your employees need to know about the new ACA filing requirements?

The more an employer can do to educate their employees about the forms and their purpose, the less likely they are to deal with confused and frustrated employees. You may even want to consider sending out a memo or having a meeting to explain these forms and how they’ll affect your employees.

Your employees should know that the ACA requires all employers with 50 or more full time employees are required to provide affordable health coverage to their employees, and that employees will receive a form (Form 1095-B or Form 1095-C) in January, around the same time as their Form W-2. Let them know that this form indicates that they had health care coverage for all 12 months, unless they declined enrollment or an error has been made. Tell your employees who is responsible for handling errors should they occur. If they do, that person will need to update the employee’s copy of Form 1095, as well as the copy transmitted to the IRS.

You can stress the importance of these ACA forms without stressing out your employees. Make sure there’s someone on your staff - and it can be the same person who handles errors - who can answer questions your employees may have when going over their ACA forms.

And if you need any help with ACA forms or keeping stress-free when you file them, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. ExpressIRSForms is here for you every step of the way: just give us a call at (704) 839-2270 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; live chat us through our website; or send us an email 24/7 at support@expressirsforms.com!

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