I.R.S. Starts to Enforce Health Law’s Rule That Employers Offer Insurance<br />When the health law was passed, lawmakers feared that without an employer mandate, companies would cancel their insurance benefits<br />and send large numbers of employees to the health care law’s insurance exchanges, where many people qualify for government subsidies.<br />has publicly stated, the agency is obligated to enforce the Affordable Care Act’s employer<br />shared responsibility provision,” said Bruce Friedland, an agency spokesman.<br />As Republicans and the Trump administration continue trying to chip away at the Affordable Care Act, the Internal Revenue<br />Service has begun, for the first time, to enforce one of the law’s most polarizing provisions: the employer mandate.<br />Large companies, defined in the law as those with 50 or more workers, are required<br />to offer their employees affordable insurance or pay stiff tax penalties.<br />Thousands of businesses — many of them small or midsize — will soon receive a letter saying<br />that they owe the government money because they failed to offer their workers qualifying health insurance.<br />The law’s exact rules are complex, but businesses will generally incur fines of around $2,000 per employee (excluding the<br />first 30) if they do not offer qualifying coverage to nearly all of those who work an average of 30 or more hours a week.
