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.

SHOP (Small Business Health Options Program) is a small business marketplace set up by your state where employers with 50 or fewer employees can buy health insurance for their employees. For more information, visit your state health website.

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.

The annual dollar limit on employee contributions to employer-sponsored healthcare flexible spending arrangements (FSA) remains unchanged at $2,500.

The annual exclusion for gifts remains at $14,000 for 2014.

Estates of decedents who die during 2014 have a basic exclusion amount of $5,340,000, up from a total of $5,250,000 for estates of decedents who died in 2013.

The maximum Earned Income Credit amount is $6,143 for taxpayers filing jointly who have 3 or more qualifying children, up from a total of $6,044 for tax year 2013.
The revenue procedure has a table providing maximum credit amounts for other categories, income thresholds and phase outs.

The tax rate of 39.6 percent affects singles whose income exceeds $406,750 ($457,600 for married taxpayers filing a joint return), up from $400,000 and $450,000, respectively. The other marginal rates – 10, 15, 25, 28, 33 and 35 percent – and the related income tax thresholds are described in the revenue procedure.

The Alternative Minimum Tax exemption amount for tax year 2014 is $52,800 ($82,100, for married couples filing jointly).
The 2013 exemption amount was $51,900 ($80,800 for married couples filing jointly).

The personal exemption rises to $3,950, up from the 2013 exemption of $3,900.
However, the exemption is subject to a phase-out that begins with adjusted gross incomes of $254,200 ($305,050 for married couples filing jointly).
It phases out completely at $376,700 ($427,550 for married couples filing jointly.)