Health Insurance Providers Must Report Certain Information to the IRS and Covered Individuals

With the new directives from the IRS, providers of minimum essential coverage are required to report certain information not only to the individual about their health coverage but also to the IRS, starting 2016.

To stay in-line with the individual shared responsibility criteria Taxpayers use the information stated in Form 1095-B, Health Coverage Information Return Form 1095-C, Employer-sponsored health offer and coverage whenever they file their tax returns. IRS would use this information to ascertain the number of months the individual has health coverage.

Self-insured group health plans details are to be reported by the Employers individually to the IRS. This would include all employers of any workforce size who are sponsoring a self-insured group health plan. Employers falling in the category of ALE (Applicable Large Employer) are supposed to file Form 1094-C and Form 1095-C for transmittal of employer-sponsored health insurance coverage information returns and for reporting information of the employees who got enrolled in the employer-sponsored health coverage plan. Employers not falling in the category of ALE are not supposed to file Form 1094-C and Form 1095-C but are supposed to file Form 1094-B and Form 1095-B for the same purposes to the IRS. The deadlines for 2015 filing are February 29, 2016, for manual filing with the IRS and March 31 for Electronic filing.

Apart from this, any other entity that provides the essential coverage will file Form 1094-B and form 1095-B. For all such categories, the deadline for filing the forms with the IRS are February 29, 2016, and March 31, 2016, for manual and electronic filing respectively. To make things further clear the filed form must include name and identification number of the taxpayer. It should also clearly describe the details of the months for which the individual was covered.

Health coverage providers should also send out the Form 1095-B to the responsible individual. IRS defines a responsible individual as the one who enrolls one or more individuals into the coverage program.

To know more information, please read the deadlines for 1095 filing for the year 2016.