Final regulations recently released by Treasury and the IRS have provided a complete deferral of the shared responsibility requirements for employers with 50-99 employees until 2016, and some relaxation of requirements in 2015 for employers with more than 99 employees. The requirement to offer coverage for those employers will now be satisfied if they offer coverage to 70% of their full-time (i.e., 30 hours/week) employees (vs. 95%) and those employers failing that requirement can exempt the first 80 employees from the penalty calculation in 2015 (vs. 30).
But those employers will still face penalties for any of their full-time employees receiving subsidized coverage through the public exchanges. Avoiding that penalty will require that employees have access to affordable coverage meeting minimum plan value requirements.
