As announced in our previous HR Law Talk blog post, the Paperwork Burden Reduction Act (PBRA) made important changes to employers' responsibilities to furnish information to employees under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). As part of the changes, employers may now provide "clear, conspicuous, and accessible" notice that individuals may request their Form 1095-B or 1095-C and distribute a Form 1095 only to individuals who request a copy, rather than furnish a Form 1095 annually to each covered individual. Recently, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released additional guidance for employers, with more details about satisfying the notice requirement.
The new guidance borrows from an existing regulation that created an alternative manner of furnishing Forms 1095-B for certain reporting entities and expands this alternative method to employers furnishing Forms 1095-C. To comply with the requirements of the regulation, an employer's notice must be:
- Reasonably accessible to all full-time employees on the employer's website.
- Written in plain, non-technical terms, with a font size large enough, including visual cues or graphics, to draw a reader's attention.
- Indicative that the information pertains to tax statements reporting that individuals had health coverage.
Further, the notice contents must include the employer's contact information where an employee or covered individual can request their Form 1095-C or reach out to the employer with questions. An employer must provide three different contact methods—an email address, a physical address, and a telephone number—to satisfy the required information.
Employers who wish to use this alternative method must post a notice complying with the above requirements no later than thirty days after the January 31 deadline for furnishing the Forms 1095-C. This means that for the 2024 reporting year, a notice complying with the requirements above should have been posted no later than March 3, 2025. For the 2025 reporting year, a compliant notice must be posted by March 2, 2026. Once posted, the notice should be retained in the same location until October 15 of the year of posting.
While a notice relieves an employer from having to furnish Forms 1095 to all covered individuals, an employer is still required to furnish a Form 1095 upon an individual's request no later than the later of:
- Thirty days after the date of the request.
- January 31 following the coverage year for which the Form 1095 is requested.
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