New Stand-alone HRA Option Available for Eligible Small Employers
Due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), most stand-alone health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs)—an HRA that is not offered in conjunction with a group health plan—have been prohibited since 2014. However, on Dec. 13, 2016, the 21st Century Cures Act (Act) was signed into law, which allows small employers that do not maintain group health plans to establish stand-alone HRAs, effective for plan years beginning on or after Jan. 1, 2017.
This new type of HRA is called a “qualified small employer HRA” (or QSEHRA). Like all HRAs, a QSEHRA must be funded solely by the employer. Employees cannot make their own contributions to an HRA, either directly or indirectly through salary reduction contributions. Specific requirements apply, including a maximum benefit limit and a notice requirement.
Who is eligible?
To be eligible to offer a QSEHRA, an employer must meet the following two requirements:
- The employer is not an applicable large employer (ALE) that is subject to the ACA’s employer shared responsibility rules.
- The employer does not maintain a group health plan for any of its employees.
What is the maximum benefit limit?
The maximum benefit available under the QSEHRA for any year cannot exceed $4,950 (or $10,000 for QSEHRAs that also reimburse medical expenses of the employee’s family members). These dollar amounts are subject to adjustment for inflation for years beginning after 2016. Additionally, the maximum dollar limits must be prorated for individuals who are not covered by the QSEHRA for the entire year.
What is the notice requirement?
An employer funding a QSEHRA for any year must provide a written notice to each eligible employee. This notice must be provided within 90 days of the beginning of the year. For employees who become eligible to participate in the QSEHRA during the year, the notice must be provided by the date on which the employee becomes eligible to participate.
Transition Relief Extension
The Act also extends the transition relief under IRS Notice 2015-17, so that it applies with respect to plan years beginning on or before Dec. 31, 2016.
Health FSA Limit Will Increase for 2017
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) imposes a dollar limit on employees’ salary reduction contributions to health flexible spending accounts (FSAs) offered under cafeteria plans. This dollar limit is indexed for cost-of-living adjustments and may be increased each year.
On Oct. 25, 2016, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released Revenue Procedure 2016-55 (Rev. Proc. 16-55). Rev. Proc. 16-55 increased the FSA dollar limit on employee salary reduction contributions to $2,600 for taxable years beginning in 2017. It also includes annual inflation numbers for 2017 for a number of other tax provisions.
ACTION STEPS
Employers should ensure that their health FSA will not allow employees to make pre-tax contributions in excess of $2,600 for 2017, and they should communicate the 2017 limit to their employees as part of the open enrollment process.
An employer may continue to impose its own health FSA limit, as long as it does not exceed the ACA’s maximum limit for the plan year. This means that an employer may continue to use the 2016 maximum limit for its 2017 plan year.
The ACA initially set the health FSA contribution limit at $2,500. For years after 2013, the dollar limit is indexed for cost-of-living adjustments.
- 2014: For taxable years beginning in 2014, the dollar limit on employee salary reduction contributions to health FSAs remained unchanged at $2,500.
- 2015: For taxable years beginning in 2015, the dollar limit on employee salary reduction contributions to health FSAs increased by $50, for a total of $2,550.
- 2016: For taxable years beginning in 2015, the dollar limit on employee salary reduction contributions to health FSAs remained unchanged at $2,550.
- 2017: For taxable years beginning in 2017, Rev. Proc. 16-55 increased the dollar limit on employee salary reduction contributions to health FSAs to $2,600.
The health FSA limit will potentially be increased further for cost-of-living adjustments in later years.
Employer Limits
An employer may continue to impose its own dollar limit on employees’ salary reduction contributions to health FSAs, as long as the employer’s limit does not exceed the ACA’s maximum limit in effect for the plan year. For example, an employer may decide to continue limiting employee health FSA contributions for the 2017 plan year to $2,500.
Per Employee Limit
The health FSA limit applies on an employee-by-employee basis. Each employee may only elect up to $2,600 in salary reductions in 2017, regardless of whether he or she also has family members who benefit from the funds in that FSA. However, each family member who is eligible to participate in his or her own health FSA will have a separate limit. For example, a husband and wife who have their own health FSAs can both make salary reductions of up to $2,600 per year, subject to any lower employer limits.
If an employee participates in multiple cafeteria plans that are maintained by employers under common control, the employee’s total health FSA salary reduction contributions under all of the cafeteria plans are limited to $2,600. However, if an individual has health FSAs through two or more unrelated employers, he or she can make salary reductions of up to $2,600 under each employer’s health FSA.
Salary Reduction Contributions
The ACA imposes the $2,600 limit on health FSA salary reduction contributions. Non-elective employer contributions to health FSAs (for example, matching contributions or flex credits) generally do not count toward the ACA’s dollar limit. However, if employees are allowed to elect to receive the employer contributions in cash or as a taxable benefit, then the contributions will be treated as salary reductions and will count toward the ACA’s dollar limit.
In addition, the limit does not impact contributions under other employer-provided coverage. For example, employee salary reduction contributions to an FSA for dependent care assistance or adoption care assistance are not affected by the health FSA limit. The limit also does not apply to salary reduction contributions to a cafeteria plan that are used to pay for an employee’s share of health coverage premiums, to contributions to a health savings account (HSA) or to amounts made available by an employer under a health reimbursement arrangement (HRA).
Grace Period/Carry-over Feature
A cafeteria plan may include a grace period of up to two months and 15 days immediately following the end of a plan year. If a plan includes a grace period, an employee may use amounts remaining from the previous plan year, including any amounts remaining in a health FSA, to pay for expenses incurred for certain qualified benefits during the grace period. If a health FSA is subject to a grace period, unused salary reduction contributions that are carried over into the grace period do not count against the $2,600 limit applicable to the following plan year.
Also, if a health FSA does not include a grace period, it may allow participants to carry over up to $500 of unused funds into the next plan year. This is an exception to the “use-it-or-lose-it” rule that generally prohibits any contributions or benefits under a health FSA from being used in a following plan year or period of coverage. A health FSA carryover does not affect the limit on salary reduction contributions. This means the plan may allow the individual to elect up to $2,600 in salary reductions in addition to the $500 that may be carried over.
Plan Amendments
Plan documents that specify the health FSA dollar limit must be amended if the higher limit will be used in 2017.
National Fall Car Care Awareness
Fall is National Car Care Awareness! Hooray? Ok, it’s not the most exciting thing on your calendar. I don’t think there’s a Hallmark card for the occasion. Nonetheless, it could be one of the most important times of the year for your car or truck. A well cared for car or truck is a happy car or truck. And a happy car or truck means a happy driver, or at least a reasonably-satisfied-with-their-ride-to-work driver.
If you’d like to fall into this category, October is a great time to take advantage of all the hype and get your vehicle some well-deserved maintenance or repair work taken care of.
What type of work should you be doing or getting done this time of year?
Early fall is a great time to get your car ready for cold temperatures. The cool mornings are enough to remind you winter is coming but it’s still warm enough to spend some time with a cold wrench in your hand. But even if you don’t live in an area that gets winter weather it’s a great time for maintenance. In colder climates, there are lots of things to think about.
Here are some things that you can get done in celebration of National Car Care Awareness.
- Add some winter air to your tires. What exactly is “winter air?” Isn’t air the same no matter what time of year it is? Actually no. Well, yes, but also no. Without getting into the full description here, suffice to say that you need to add a little air at the beginning of the winter season.
You can read more here. - Check, check and check. There are numerous checks to do on your vehicle regularly. Some people think that with all of the warning lights and computer diagnostics that are constantly running, the days of physically checking levels of things like coolant, brake fluid, power steering fluid and oil are over. While these monitoring systems are able to alert you when there is a serious issue, some of them don’t activate until you are at point blank. For instance, if your low coolant light comes on, many vehicles’ warning systems tell the driver to stop the engine immediately. This avoids costly damage to the engine, sure, but you’re left sitting in a parking lot or (even worse) on the side of the road trying to figure out how to get some coolant into the engine. If you notice that your airbag light is on, that means that your airbags won’t deploy, so this is something you should address before you get on the road. Should you discover that there is an issue with the airbag module (the component which acts as a controller), then you may wish to take a look at the site here and consider getting this reset so that, hopefully, the light will disappear and you will be able to drive safely in the knowledge that, should you run into an accident, your airbags will be there to support you. Checking these levels on your own can help avoid delays as well as breakdowns. If you have a truck or are a trucker, the best thing you can do is to find a mechanic that works on trucks and get a thorough checkup done for your vehicle. A truck does require a different level of maintenance than a normal car and it is best that a professional takes care of it at regular intervals.
- Think about safety. Car Care Awareness may conjure images of oil changes and brake pads, but you probably aren’t thinking of bottled water or winter blankets. Just like Daylight Savings Time is the perfect random point on the calendar to replace the batteries in your smoke detector, National Car Care Awareness is a great time to check and replace your emergency preparedness supplies. If you live in an area that sees winter weather, this is even more important. You never know for sure when you may find yourself temporarily stranded. Be prepared.
National Car Care Awareness was created by AAA back in the 1980s to promote safety and efficiency in vehicles and emphasize the responsibility of car owners in maintaining their vehicles. AAA has launched a number of effective safety and efficiency campaigns over the years in a continuing effort to help drivers live more responsibly and affordably with their cars and trucks.