Ask a CPA

Larger employers (with more than 50 employees) will be required to provide insurance or face a tax penalty of $2,000 per employee, starting with the 31st employee. This requirement has been recently delayed by a year and will now go into effect in 2015.
If you do provide insurance, you could face a penalty of $3,000 per employee if the insurance is deemed “unaffordable” because it costs more than 9.5% of the employee’s income.

A full time employee is someone who works on average 30 hours or more per week. To determine whether you need to provide employer-purchased insurance in 2014, you will need to look at how many full time employees you employed in 2013.

No. There is no employer match for Additional Medicare Tax.

An employer is required to begin withholding Additional Medicare Tax in the pay period in which it pays wages in excess of $200,000 to an employee.

Yes, the value of taxable wages not paid in cash, such as noncash fringe benefits, are subject to Additional Medicare Tax, if, in combination with other wages, they exceed the individual’s applicable threshold.
Noncash wages are subject to Additional Medicare Tax withholding, if, in combination with other wages paid by the employer, they exceed the $200,000 withholding threshold.

Yes. Wages paid by an employer and by the third party need to be aggregated to determine whether the $200,000 withholding threshold has been met.
The same rules that currently assign responsibility for sick pay reporting and payment of Medicare tax based on which party is treated as the employer (that is, the employer, the employer’s agent, or a third party that is not the employer’s agent) apply also to Additional Medicare Tax.

The statute requires an employer to withhold Additional Medicare Tax at a rate of 0.9 %on wages it pays to an employee in excess of $200,000 in a calendar year without regard to filing status.
A new line 5d has been added to Form 941.
The amount withheld will be reported with regular Medicare tax on Form W-2, Box 6.
Beginning January 1, 2013. An employer has this withholding obligation even though an employee may not be liable for Additional Medicare Tax Any withheld Additional Medicare Tax will be credited against the total tax liability shown on the individual’s income tax return (Form 1040).

You can claim the credit on IRS Form 8941, Credit for Small Employer Health Insurance Premiums, to calculate the credit. For detailed information on filling out this form, see the Instructions for Form 8941.
If you are a small business, include the amount as part of the general business credit on your income tax return.
If you are a small business employer, you may be able to carry the credit back or forward.

In the Health Insurance Marketplace, you generally can get dental coverage as part of a health plan or by itself through a separate, stand-alone dental plan. Under the health care law, dental insurance is treated differently for adults and children 18 and under.
Dental coverage for children is an essential health benefit. This means it must be available to you as part of a health plan or as a free-standing plan. This is not the case for adults. Insurers don’t have to offer adult dental coverage.
Starting in 2014, you must have health coverage or pay a fee. But this is not true for dental coverage. You do not need to have dental coverage to avoid the penalty.

Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program can not refuse to cover you or charge you more because of a health condition.