Employer Shared Responsibility Proposed Regulations

Although employers are not required to provide health care benefits for their employees, beginning in 2014, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, certain large employers (including both for-profit and not-for-profit employers) that do not offer "substantially all" their full-time employees (and their "dependents") the opportunity to receive "affordable," "minimum value" health care coverage under an employer-sponsored plan will be subject to penalties under the provisions of new Internal Revenue Code Section 4980H. Two types of penalties potentially will apply. For employers that do not offer health coverage to their full-time employees and their dependents and where at least one full-time employee receives a federal premium tax credit to help pay for coverage through an Exchange, the "play or pay" penalty will be $2,000 for each of the employer's full-time employees in excess of the first 30. For employers that offer health care coverage to