Understanding Changes To The Small Business Health Care Tax Credit

Preparing Your Small Business For Tax Season

With tax season just around the corner, small business owners must consider whether or not they will be taking advantage of the small business health care tax credit. New changes surrounding the small business health care tax credit mean that you simply cannot sign off on the paperwork from last year. To ensure that you are in complete understanding of your responsibility in regards to this tax credit, allow the following informational points to guide you:

  • Starting in 2014 and continuing to following years, the maximum tax credit increases to 50 percent of paid premiums for small business employers. However, the maximum tax credit increases to 35 percent of paid premiums for small tax-exempt employers.
  • In order to be eligible for the small business health care tax credit, you must pay premiums on behalf of your team that has enrolled in a qualified health insurance plan. These plans must be obtained through the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP).
  • You can be eligible to take advantage of the small business health care tax credit for two consecutive taxable years.
  • To claim the tax credit, you must file Form 8941 – Credit for Small Employer Health Insurance Premiums. This will guide you through the process of calculating the tax credit.
  • As a small business employer, you may be eligible to carry the tax credit back or forward. In order to determine your eligibility, seek guidance from a Certified Covered California agent, such as the experienced and knowledgeable professionals at Bernardini & Donovan Insurance Services.

Rather than leaving yourself unprotected, seek the care you deserve today! Contact Bernardini & Donovan Insurance Services in Redlands for all of your California health insurance needs. As Covered California experts, you can rest assured that we will be your guiding hand in the realm of health insurance and health care.

Choosing Health Coverage For Your Small Business

Understanding The SHOP Marketplace

Small business owners across the country have been experiencing change as they are now legally required to comply with new regulations and requirements under the Affordable Care Act. Since the world of health insurance and health care has transformed completely, choosing the right small business health insurance plans to best protect your team is more challenging.

If you missed the open enrollment deadline on February 15th and are beginning to panic since you have not properly set up your small business plans, do not fret! We can still write you a policy for your small business.

A unique entity known as the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) Marketplace allows small business owners to obtain the coverage they are required to offer their team, despite missed deadlines. When utilizing plans offered in SHOP, you have the luxury of avoiding restricted enrollment periods and offer deadlines.

There are many benefits of utilizing the SHOP Marketplace in addition to full luxury to pick and alter coverage as you please. If you are currently satisfied with your insurance agent, feel free to enroll with them! The SHOP Marketplace does not require that you change agents; therefore, you can go through this process with the agency you trust most.

The SHOP Marketplace is the perfect way to obtain health insurance and comply with all requirements set forth by the Affordable Care Act if you have 50 or fewer full time employees. The same goes for nonprofit organizations, however, if you are self-employed you cannot utilize the SHOP Marketplace.

Please do not hesitate to give us a call if you are in need of enrolling for a SHOP plan for your small business. Contact Bernardini & Donovan Insurance Services in Redlands for all of your California health insurance needs. As Covered California experts, you can rest assured that we will be your guiding hand in the realm of health insurance and health care.

How Obamacare Will Affect Your Small Business

As the various insurance implications surrounding Obamacare continue to affect both individuals and small businesses, it is important that you make sure that you are complying with the Affordable Care Act. Depending on the size of your small business and the amount of full-time employees that you have, you may be required to offer them health insurance. As we observe how recent health care reform is affecting our California small businesses, there are some trends that are worthy of acknowledgement:

  • Obamacare has contributed to the growth of consumer-driven health care. As a consumer-driven industry, employees and patients are acting as medical consumers and controlling how their health care allowances are spent. Since the responsibility of controlling health care choices is transferred to the employees, small business employers benefit from consumer-driven health care.
  • As a small business employer, it is important that you educate yourself of the various health insurance options available to you. When it comes to small businesses and health insurance, you have the luxury of offering your employees tax-free money so that they can make their own health insurance purchase.
  • The entire way employee benefits work is altered by recent health care reform. Rather than providing your employees with a group health insurance plan, you now have the luxury of offering your employees a health care allowance instead. If you have experienced the inability to offer your employees group health insurance in the past due to failure to meet minimum requirements, you can now offer employees this commodity, tax-free!

Contact Bernardini & Donovan Insurance Services for all of your California business’ health insurance needs. We understand that the various implications surrounding Covered California may have you confused, and that is why we are available to dispel any myths and reveal only the truth.

Small Businesses: Your Options Outside the Exchange

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, or simply the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as it is more commonly known, gives all Americans and small business owners an option to buy private health insurance through state or federally managed healthcare exchanges. The plan is designed to give uninsured and under-insured Americans a way to shop for and compare multiple plans and buy healthcare coverage regardless of financial status, age or previous medical history. The ACA’s health care exchanges are expected to radically transform the manner in which American’s purchase medical insurance. However, such exchanges are not the only option for getting coverage.

Under the ACA, all healthcare plans are required to comply with certain minimum coverage requirements regardless of whether the plans are offered via a healthcare exchange or sold directly to the consumer. All health insurance options outside the exchange have to include the same drug coverage and essential benefits as those offered via a health exchange. As an individual consumer, or as a small business owner, you have the ability to go directly to health insurance websites, insurance agents and brokers and buy the same insurance coverage that you would get via an exchange for exactly the same price.

If you live or operate a small business in Redlands, California and want to learn more about health insurance options outside the exchange please contact the health insurance specialists at Bernardini & Donovan Insurance.

How the SHOP Works

When a business gets started there are a number of things that need to happen in order to attract employees. One of the benefits that needs to be in place is health insurance. The Covered California SHOP Exchange is a way for small businesses to provide group health insurance for their employees. Here is how Shop works for small businesses:

How Shop Works

  • Each participant in the plan completes a profile and receives a group ID.
  • The employee of the company enters the SHOP program and they are then issued an ID of their own. In order for them to      access their plan they are also issued a password.
  • Once inside the plan the employee enrolls in the health plan that they need for themselves.
  • Once the employee has made their selections the employer then verifies that they work there.
  • All information is taken care of by the SHOP and then from there it is given over to the insurance carriers.

Any small business owners who have questions about the SHOP in California, should contact Bernardini & Donovan Insurance Services. They can help answer all of your questions about Covered California SHOP.

 

Covered California SHOP Exchange: What this means for employers

In California small businesses that are struggling to provide health care coverage for their employees now have hope. The Covered California SHOP (Small Business Health Options Program) Exchange will provide a greater selection of group health insurance coverage, previously only offered to businesses with larger numbers of employees. Small business owners who are interested in joining the Covered California SHOP Exchange can do so just as long as they have less than 50 employees, for the time being.

As part of this revolutionary program, small businesses with fewer than 25 employees, as well as an annual earning that is less than $50,000, can earn a 50 percent federal tax credit for any health care coverage that is purchased via SHOP. To date 375,000 small business employers in the state of California are eligible for this small business tax credit.

Here at Bernardini & Donovan Insurance Services we offer additional information regarding the Covered California SHOP Exchange. If you would like assistance in determining if you are eligible or how to be a part of the SHOP program, contact the insurance professionals at Bernardini & Donovan Insurance Services, located in Redlands, CA today.

 

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