ACA Reporting 2020 Updates

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently issued Notice 2020-76 with information pertaining to the upcoming reporting required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The following information was included in the notice:

• The deadline for furnishing a copy of Form 1095-B or 1095-C to applicable employees and individuals has been extended from January 31, 2021 to March 2, 2021. Due to this automatic extension, no further extensions will be considered by the IRS.
• No extensions have been provided for submitting the reporting forms to the IRS. If filing manually, forms must be submitted to the IRS by March 1, 2021 (because February 28th falls on a Sunday). If filing electronically, forms must be submitted by March 31, 2021. Entities submitting 250 or more  forms must submit electronically. A 30-day extension may be requested by submitting Form 8809 prior to the normal due date.
• Good faith error reporting penalty relief will apply once again to the 2020 reporting year. This means employers will not be penalized if they report information that is incorrect or inaccurate and provided they made good faith efforts to comply with the reporting requirements.
• For 2020, the IRS will not assess penalties against reporting entities who fail to automatically furnish a copy of Form 1095-B to individuals so long as they furnish a copy to individuals within 30 days of their request and they prominently post information on their website which indicates how a copy of Form 1095-B can be requested. The primary purpose of Form 1095-B was to enforce the Individual Mandate, but there is no longer a federal penalty for failing to be enrolled in minimum essential coverage.

The IRS previously released draft versions of the ACA reporting forms for the 2020 reporting year, but  they have not yet released draft instructions. The 2020 reporting instructions are supposed to include  some new details, such as how to report offers of coverage under an Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement (ICHRA).