Defined Contribution Account Manager
Qualified Plan Administrators Inc
in GA

Senior Pension Administrator III
Lafayette Life Insurance Group
in OH

Account Executive
Fringe Benefit Group
in TX

Counsel - Retirement Plans
Nationwide
in OH

?See 119 Jobs

?Post a Job

Current Developments in Health Plans: ACA Assessments and Association Health Plans
March 1, 2018 WEBCAST
Littler Mendelson

Maintaining Employee Productivity and Security with New Cyber Fraud Benefits
March 6, 2018 WEBCAST
HANYS Benefit Services

?See 172 Upcoming Webcasts and Conferences

?See 1383 Recorded Webcasts

New Topics on the BenefitsLink Message Boards

New Comments and Topics

All Topics , Grouped by Forum

Text of Instructions for 2018 IRS Form 8963 (PDF)
Feb. 15, 2018. "File Form 8963 during each fee year (year the annual health insurance provider fee is due) to report net premiums written for U.S. health risks during the data year (calendar year immediately preceding the fee year). The IRS will use that information when figuring the annual fee imposed by [ACA] section 9010."
Internal Revenue Service [IRS]

Online Learning Course: Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)

Learn how to avoid common administration mistakes, implement best practices and be aware of interactions with other laws.

How to Calculate the New Federal Paid Family Leave Tax Credit
"Under new Section 45S of the Internal Revenue Code, employers that voluntarily offer qualifying employees up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave annually pursuant to a written policy may claim a tax credit for a portion of the wages paid during leave. The leave benefit must satisfy the requirements in Section 45S."
Jackson Lewis P.C.

New Tax Law Limits Employer's Deduction for Qualified Transportation Fringe Benefit Expenses
"[A]ny employer contribution to [a plan under Code section 132(f)] reduces the amount an employee can elect as a pre-tax amount for his or her commuting and parking benefits.... Employers may still take the deduction for these expenses if the employer treats the payments as taxable compensation to the employees.... [B]etween Jan. 1, 2018 and Dec. 31, 2025 employer reimbursements for bicycle commuting expenses are taxable wages for the employee. The sunset provision does not apply to the other qualified transportation fringe benefits."
Ice Miller LLP

Medicare Secondary Payer Compliance for Group Health Plans
"Given recent enforcement trends, and the risk of raising damages for non-compliance from double to treble, including a minimum fine of $1000 per day per unreported beneficiary, [group health plans (GHPs)] may want to review and audit their compliance with MSP requirements.... GHPs with 20 or more employees report certain information to CMS to avoid payment conflicts (although smaller companies have certain limited reporting obligations)."
Health Law Advisor, Epstein Becker Green

March 1 Deadline to Notify Washington State Employees of Paid Sick Leave Law
"Current employees ... must receive the notification on or before March 1, 2018. Newly hired employees ... must receive the notification at the time of hire. The employee notification must include ... [1] Employees' entitlement to [paid sick leave (PSL)]; [2] The rate at which employees will accrue PSL; [3] The authorized purposes for which PSL may be used; and [4] That retaliation by the employer for the employee's lawful use of PSL is prohibited."
Davis Wright Tremaine LLP

ACA Reporting Requirements and Lessons Learned

March 5 webinar. Despite the uncertainty of the ACA's future it remains the law of the land. This webinar covers lessons learned from the past two years and identifies focus areas to prevent problems next year. CE credits. Discount for BenefitsLink readers .

Maryland Enacts Paid Sick and Safe Leave Law
"Maryland's new law, which took effect on February 11, requires employers with 15 or more employees to provide one hour of paid sick and safe leave for every 30 hours worked. Maryland, Oregon and Rhode Island are the only states that have paired a ban on local leave laws with a statewide PSL mandate. Without a federal mandate, the number of jurisdictions with PSL laws will likely continue to expand."
Willis Towers Watson

How Public Sector Employers Can Manage Retiree Health Liabilities (PDF)
"Changes in the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) reporting requirements will increase the [retiree health] liabilities of many state and local government health plans in 2018.... This article describes strategies that many private companies have used to avoid a significant liability increase and can serve as a road map for public sector employers in dealing with GASB changes."
Benefits Quarterly, published by the International Society of Certified Employee Benefit Specialists [ISCEBS]

Health Plan Design May Be Impacting Financial Well-Being Program Success (PDF)
"One way that employers may potentially be contributing to financial stress ... is by making changes to their health plans. Specifically, the move toward CDHP's and high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) may be causing financial stress for the same workers that employers are targeting with financial wellness programs."
Employee Benefit Research Institute [EBRI]

Help Your Group Health Clients Keep Their Workers' Hearts Healthy
"Cardiovascular claims continue to top the charts as one of the most likely illnesses to put people out of work.... [N]early 30 percent of those surveyed experienced a cardiac event within the past five years, and nearly 60 percent of those people missed work because of it. While the majority was out for less than a month, more than 25 percent were out of work for up to four months.... Some products and services to consider are: Disability insurance ... Hospital indemnity insurance ... Critical illness coverage ... Wellness programs."
InsuranceNewsNet.com

Proposed Regs Would Turn Back the Clock on Short-Term, Limited-Duration Insurance Coverage Periods
"The proposed regulations would expand the definition of [short-term, limited-duration insurance] to mean health insurance with a maximum coverage period of less than 12 months.... The 2018 proposed regulations include updated notice language that includes two versions."
Thomson Reuters Practical Law

The Potential Impact of Short-Term Limited-Duration Policies on Insurance Coverage, Premiums, and Federal Spending
"The introduction of expanded short-term, limited-duration policies, consistent with proposed regulations, would increase the number of people without minimum essential coverage by 2.5 million in 2019.... The combined effect of eliminating the individual-mandate penalties and expanding short-term limited-duration policies would increase 2019 ACA-compliant nongroup insurance premiums 18.2 percent on average in the 43 states that do not prohibit or limit short-term plans."
Urban Institute

HHS Scrubs $11.5B in Risk Corridor Funding from Budget; DOJ Attorney Chalks It Up to an Accounting Error
"In court filings last week, attorneys with Land of Lincoln Mutual Health Insurance Company and Moda Health Plan highlighted portions of the HHS budget proposal that included $11.5 billion for risk-corridor payments in fiscal year 2018 ... But HHS has since scrubbed the budget of the $11.5 billion appropriation, substituting $25 million for risk corridor collections instead. It also removed language indicating it would fully fund the program."
FierceHealthcare

A New Year, A New Stock Plan (PDF)
"The items listed [in this article] reflect recent changes in applicable corporate governance, securities, tax, and accounting rules.... [It] is usually preferable to seek shareholder approval for a new plan that covers the entire spectrum of desired improvements, globalization of the workforce, e-delivery innovations, and governance practices responsive to the concerns of shareholders and the standards enunciated by proxy advisory firms such as ISS and Glass Lewis."
The Wagner Law Group, via Bloomberg BNA Pension & Benefits Daily

CEO Pay Ratios in Context (PDF)
"The CEO Pay Ratios contained in this Client Briefing were calculated using the BLS median annual compensation for a U.S. worker of $43,992 for 2016. As a result, the ratios may not reflect the ratios that will be disclosed in 2018 proxy statements for [1] companies with median employee annual total compensation significantly above or below the BLS amount, and [2] companies with a large global employee workforce such that their median employee is not based in the U.S."
ExeQuity

Press Releases

Torchlight Reports 110 Percent User Growth Fueled by Nationwide Need for Employee Caregiver Resources Torchlight

Altigro Pension Adds Plans From Pro-Plans, Inc. of NJ Altigro Pension Services

View All Press Releases