IRS Health Care Tax Tip 2016-11, January 27, 2016 The Affordable Care Act contains several tax provisions that affect employers. Under the ACA, the size and structure of your workforce – small or large – helps determine which parts of the law apply to your organization. The number of employees you had during the prior year determines whether your organization is an applicable large employer for the current year. This is important because two provisions of the Affordable Care Act apply only to applicable large employers. These are the employer shared responsibility provision and the employer information reporting provisions for offers of minimum essential coverage. The vast majority of employers fall below the workforce size threshold on which ALE status is based and therefore are not subject to these provisions. Your organization’s size is determined by the number of your employees. An employer with 50 or more full-time employees or full-time equivalents is considered an applicable large employer – also known as an ALE – under the ACA. For purposes of the employer shared responsibility provision, the number of employees a business had during the prior year determines whether it is an ALE the current year. Employers make this calculation by averaging the number of employees they had throughout the year, which takes into account workforce fluctuations many employers experience. Employers with fewer than 50 full-time or full-time equivalent employees are not applicable large employers. Calculating the number of employees is especially important for employers that have close to 50 employees or whose work force fluctuates during the year. To determine your workforce size for a year, you add the total number of full-time employees for each month of the prior calendar year to the total number of full-time equivalent employees for each calendar month of the prior calendar year. You then divides that combined total by 12. For more information, visit our Determining if an Employer is an Applicable Large Employer page on IRS.gov/aca. Subscribe to IRS Tax Tips to receive easy-to-read tips from the IRS by e-mail. Health care tax tips Health Care Tax Tips Health Care Tax Tips - December 2016 Health Care Tax Tips - November 2016 Health Care Tax Tips - October 2016 Health Care Tax Tips - September 2016 Health Care Tax Tips Related HealthCare.gov Individual shared responsibility provision The Premium Tax Credit – The basics Affordable Care Act – What to expect when filing your tax return Gathering your health coverage documentation for the tax filing season ACA information center for tax professionals How to correct an electronically filed return rejected for a missing Form 8962
