The IRS issued Notice 2019-63 on December 2, 2019 announcing the extension of the due dates for sending certain health care information statements to individuals as required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Initially the IRS required employers to provide Form 1095-B or Form 1095-C to individuals by January 31, 2020, but this extension provides some relief to busy employers extending the deadline to March 2, 2020.
Large employers with 50 or more full-time employees including equivalents, and self-insured employers of any size, now have an additional month to furnish employees and covered individuals with information statements regarding 2019 health coverage.
It is worth noting that the IRS has extended the date every year since the ACA’s requirement went into effect because a significant number of employers, insurers, and other providers of health coverage need more time to gather and analyze the information they need to prepare Form 1095-B, Health Coverage, and Form 1095-C, Employer-Provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage.
The extension does not apply to the due dates for filing information returns with the IRS. Deadlines for Filing Forms 1094 and 1095 with IRS are:
- Paper Filing: February 28, 2020; paper filing is only permitted for fewer than 250 individual statements.
- Electronic Filing: March 31, 2020; electronic filing is mandatory for 250 or more individual statements.
In previous years, employers were given good faith relief from penalties for reporting incorrect or incomplete information, and Notice 2019-63 extends that relief to 2019 tax year filings. This relief applies to missing and inaccurate taxpayer identification numbers and dates of birth, as well as other information required on the return or statement.
This relief does not apply to failure to file or filing late. Simply put, employers must make reasonable efforts to complete their filing obligations on time and accurately to benefit from good faith relief.
Additionally, the IRS is also extending its relief from penalties under Sections 6721 and 6722 for taxpayers that have made good-faith efforts to comply with the 2019 reporting requirements.
Since the individual shared-responsibility penalty for 2019 (and any year after) was repealed by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, P.L. 115-97, individual taxpayers do not need the information on Form 1095-B to compute their federal tax liability or file an income tax return. The IRS is requesting comments about whether it should change any of the reporting requirements in light of this change.
For more information on this or other legislative issues, please contact your Keenan representative.
About Kevin Knopf
Kevin is Keenan's Assistant Vice President of Marketing Communications and assists with authoring and distributing information on legislative and regulatory issues that may have an impact on Keenan’s clients.