This blog was last updated on June 27, 2021

The Benefits to Adhering to the Original ACA Reporting Timeline for Tax Year 2015

Although the IRS has extended the deadlines for the first year of mandatory ACA filing, it is still possible to fulfill your obligations early—and doing so will greatly benefit your employees and organization in the process. Help Your 1040 Filers You may be already aware of a company’s obligation to send 1095 Forms to employees in order to meet their Applicable Large Employer (ALE) requirements. But, did you also know that this document can be used to determine proof of health insurance information throughout the calendar year? Current and past employees, AND their dependents, need the information on this 1095 form to help avoid additional tax penalties if they have an individual Shared Responsibility Payment obligation. Essentially, if they didn’t have coverage all year, they need to determine their individual ACA “tax” using the IRS 8965 form and they need their ACA forms to complete it! Avoid Higher Costs and Print Vendor Problems With all the ACA forms originally scheduled to print in January, the ACA deadline extension now opens up another two months for organizations to complete the print and mail process.  . Waiting to print puts you at risk of running into a limited number of print vendors available to handle your forms. There may be a rush of print requests closer to the new deadlines and you don’t want to be caught up in that limited capacity bottleneck. Some vendors only prepared for additional print volume close to the original deadline and if you missed this window, you now need to find a viable alternative. Additionally, this rush of last minute print requests will put print vendors in a position to charge late fees and higher prices for short notice print runs. Organizations should avoid these extra costs by compiling, validating, and populating data on the required forms now. Maintain Control with a Longer Correction Period Corrections for ACA forms in Tax Year 2015 are mandatory like any other IRS 10-series form filing. The sooner you file, the more time you have  to make corrections which will help you avoid  audit and penalty exposure. With this being the first year required to accurately report this information, you may be challenged with data accuracies about your employees and their dependents. Allow your organization the time to process corrections. Being proactive can not only ensure happy customers and employees, but can also help your business. By fulfilling your obligations early, you not only help ensure compliance but provide the accurate information necessary because you have adequate time for corrections. You can avoid additional costs and obstacles as well. But most importantly, you provide the necessary forms needed by your employees and their family members to do their own accurate 1040 form filing.