In a bit of good news for employers, the IRS has extended the deadline for the Affordable Care Act’s 2016 information-reporting requirements, giving businesses an additional 30 days to deliver these forms to employees.
The IRS, in a notification posted on its website, said it wanted to give employers more time to distribute the forms due to the “lengthy administrative process” involved.
That’s because the Treasury Department and the IRS determined that a substantial number of employers and insurance providers needed more time to gather and analyze the information they need to prepare the 2016 Forms 1095-C (Employer-provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage) and 1095-B (Health Coverage).
The IRS notice has the following effects:
- The deadline for distributing Form 1095-B and Form 1095-C is deferred to March 2, 2017 from Jan. 31.
- Because the IRS granted an across-the-board extension to all employers, it will ignore any requests for extension that employers have filed.
- This extension applies for tax year 2016 only, and does not require the submission of any request or other documentation to the IRS.
PLEASE NOTE: The deadlines for filing Forms 1094 and 1095 were not changed. These are forms that employers are required to submit to the IRS.
This means there is likely to be no automatic extension to file the 2016 Form 1094-B (Transmittal of Health Coverage Information Returns) – which must be submitted with copies of Form 1095-B – Form 1094-C (Transmittal of Employer-provided Health Insurance Offer and Coverage Information Returns) and copies of Form 1095-C.
Therefore, this notice does not extend the due date for filing with the IRS the 2016 Forms 1094-B, 1095-B, 1094-C or 1095-C, which remains Feb. 28, 2017, if not filing electronically, or March 31, 2017, if filing electronically (as those submitting 250 or more forms are required to do).
Forms 1095-B and 1095-C must be postmarked to employees/responsible individuals by March 2, 2017 – for tax year 2016.
While the date for filing with the IRS was not extended, employers can obtain a 30-day extension by submitting Form 8809 (Application for Extension of Time to File Information Returns) by the due date for the ACA information returns.
