The IRS has issued relief from certain Form 1094-C and 1095-C reporting requirements under the Affordable Care Act relating to employee health plans, as well as relief from certain reporting-related penalties.
As a refresher, the ACA generally requires four forms to be produced each year, and the names are anything but intuitive:
Which form your plan would be required to file or furnish depends on whether you are an ALE, and how you fill out the form and whether you offer fully insured or self-insured coverage.
The IRS has extended the deadline for furnishing Forms 1095-B and 1095-C to individuals. The typical deadline to report 2020 plan information is January 31, 2021. However, the new relief extends the deadline to March 2, 2021. The extension is automatic, and the IRS has indicated that no further extensions will be granted, and it will not respond to such requests.
Be aware that this extension does not apply to the 1094-B and 1094-C filings with the IRS. The deadline for submitting these filings to the IRS will remain March 1, 2021 (since the original due date of February 28 falls on a Sunday), for paper filings and March 31, 2021, for those filing electronically. However, while the automatic extension does not apply to these deadlines, filers may still request an extension from the IRS.
Recognizing that the main purpose of Forms 1095-B and 1095-C was to allow an individual to compute his or her tax liability relating to the individual mandate, and because the individual mandate has been reduced to zero, the IRS has granted relief from furnishing certain documents to individuals.
The IRS indicated that it will not assess penalties for failure to furnish a Form 1095-B if two conditions are met. First, the reporting entity must post a prominent notice on its website stating that individuals may receive a copy of their 2020 Form 1095-B upon request, along with an email address, physical address, and phone number. Second, the reporting entity must furnish the 2020 Form 1095-B to the responsible individual within 30 days of receipt of the request. The statements may be furnished electronically if certain additional requirements are met.
The same reporting relief does not extend to ALEs that are required to furnish Form 1095-C. This form must continue to be furnished to full-time employees, and penalties will continue to be assessed for a failure to furnish Form 1095-C. However, the relief does generally apply to furnishing the Form 1095-C to participants who were not full-time employees for any month of 2019 if the requirements above are met. This would typically include part-time employees, COBRA continuees, or retirees.
Note that while these requirements for furnishing the 1095-B and 1095-C to individuals has been modified, these forms must still be transmitted to the IRS along with their Form 1094 counterparts.
In the final piece of good news from the IRS, it announced relief from penalties for incorrect or incomplete information on any of these forms. This relief applies to both missing and inaccurate taxpayer identification numbers and birthdays, as well as other required information.
The reporting entity must be able to show that it made a good faith effort to comply with the reporting requirements. A successful showing of good faith will show that an employer made reasonable efforts to prepare for the reporting requirements and the furnishing to employees, such as gathering and transmitting the necessary information to the person preparing the forms.
However, the relief does not apply to reporting entities that completely fail to file or furnish the forms at all.
Finally, and importantly, the IRS has indicated that this will be the last year that it will provide this good faith reporting relief.