The Affordable Care Act (ACA) became a law on March 23, 2010. Now, three years later, the start-date for the 2013 “Look-Back” period is fast approaching (June 1st), which should be of particular concern to employers who haven’t yet started tracking employee hours in order to avoid potential tax penalties/payments or to qualify for upcoming tax credits.
To say the least, employers will be required for 2013 and beyond to validate Full Time and Full Time Equivalent employee counts as well as demonstrate employee hours worked by week or month to the IRS.
As an employer, it’s time to get informed and make decisions about how this will affect your business as well as your client’s!
Rest Assured – The Solution & New Features
If you are worried about upcoming ACA requirements and changes (and rightfully so!), rest assured there are solutions.
The most simple and immediate solution is to implement automated timekeeping! In fact, this is perhaps the most important of considerations for your company and clients. If your payroll clients are not yet using automated timekeeping, there’s never been a more pressing and appropriate time to start.
To assist employers with ACA management and determining potential exposure, SwipeClock has released a number of new critical features. We are also developing additional functionality to come in the near future. Much has been said about ACA recently. If you only manage to take a couple of points from this blog post, remember the following:
- New “Work Week Report” – Apex Payroll just released a new “Work Week Report” in Classic and Glue to enable employers to quickly calculate their count of Full Time Employees, Full Time Equivalents (FTE’s), and Non-Full-Time Employees. Employers can view how each employee contributes to the FTE count. We will continue to develop features for this report and have more great enhancements coming very soon.
- New “Hours Alert” – Apex Payroll just released a new “Hours Alert” feature to indicate to employers precisely when part-time employees will cross over a defined period of hours for the week, such as 28 or 30 hours.
We invite you to contact a Partner Development Specialist to learn more about ACA and these new features. To finish, let’s touch on some of the benefits of these new features to employers:
- Avoid unnecessary IRS audits, penalties, and tedious administration by using an automated timekeeping system that can conveniently track employee hours and indicate your “Shared Responsibility” status.* Employer note: “Large” employers with over 50 “Full Time Equivalent” (FTE) employees will be required to report six consecutive months of labor records for 2013 to the IRS.
- Quickly determine your current and ongoing “large employer” classification status. Are you over or under the threshold of 50 Full Time & “Full Time Equivalent” employees? This will determine your IRS and PPACA “Shared Responsibility” exposure.*
- Manage employee hours in advance to avoid exposure. Get alerts to determine when part-time employees will cross over 28 hours, 30 hours, or another defined count of hours per week.
- “Pay,” “Play,” or Qualify for Incentives – Avoid “Shared Responsibility” tax penalties, recognize your large employer status, or perhaps even qualify for tax incentives as a small employer by effectively validating your “Full Time Equivalent” counts.*
- Validate your status as a small employer (25 FTE’s or less) to qualify for health insurance tax credits (up to 35% in 2013 and 50% in 2014). Also, employers generally under 100 FTE’s will be eligible to shop for better group insurance benefits through public health exchanges.*
- Be ready by June 1st to track your employee’s hours (by work week or month) to meet potential IRS requirements for a six-month “Look-Back” period.
Employer note: Employees over 30-hours per week or 130-hours per month will qualify
for employer-sponsored “affordable” health care.*
- Management measurement periods. Easily demonstrate hours worked per week by employee over your “Look-Back” and other measurement periods.
*Note: Other eligibility requirements apply. Check www.irs.gov for more information.
In the end, automated timekeeping can help employers immensely for the Affordable Care Act, perhaps more than anything else. Regardless of your company’s size, automated timekeeping can help you get prepared for tax time in 2014! Contact us today for more information about our automated timekeeping service.
For further information please contact Apex Payroll at 714-983-7758.
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