The Shared Responsibility Payment and its consequences

How Coverage You Offer (or Don’t Offer) May Mean an Employer Shared Responsibility Payment for Your Organization

Under the Affordable Care Act, certain employers, based on workforce size – called applicable large employers – are subject to the employer shared responsibility provisions. The vast majority of employers fall below the workforce size threshold and, therefore, are not subject to the employer shared responsibility provisions.

If you are an employer that is subject to the employer shared responsibility provisions, you may choose either to offer affordable minimum essential coverage that provides minimum value to your full-time employees and their dependents, or to potentially owe an  employer shared responsibility payment to the IRS.  Many employers already offer coverage that is sufficient to avoid owing a payment.

If your organization is an applicable large employer, and you choose not to offer affordable minimum essential coverage that provides minimum value to your full-time employees and their dependents, you may be subject to one of two potential employer shared responsibility payments.

More specifically, you may need to make an employer shared responsibility payment to the IRS if you are an applicable large employer and either of these circumstances applies for 2015:

• You offered minimum essential coverage to fewer than 70 percent of your full-time employees and their dependents, and at least one full-time employee enrolled in coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace and received the premium tax credit.    
• You offered minimum essential coverage to at least 70 percent of your full-time employees and their dependents, but at least one full-time employee enrolled in coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace and received the premium tax credit.  A full-time employee could receive the premium tax credit because the coverage that was offered was not affordable, did not provide minimum value, or was not offered to the full-time employee. 

For both of these circumstances, the 70 percent threshold changes to 95 percent after 2015.

The terms “affordable” and “minimum value” have specific meanings under the Affordable Care Act that are explained in questions 19 and 20 on the employer shared responsibility provision questions and answers page on IRS.gov/aca.  Transition relief for offers of coverage to dependents for 2015 is described in question 33 on the same page.