Healthcare Reform: The Affordable Care Act Tax Provisions

The landmark legislation known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), signed into law in 2010, affects a wide range of institutions in the United States in some way. It imposes healthcare-related requirements on health plans, health insurers and employers.

In addition to imposing various tax increases to increase revenue, the PPACA uses a carrot and stick approach to ensure compliance with its provisions, offering tax credits for compliance and imposing tax penalties for non-compliance. This course will review the principal provisions of the law and will examine its tax impact on individuals and businesses.

In so doing, it will consider the:

• Coverage-related provisions of the PPACA addressing –
  • Plan grandfathering pursuant to which health coverage in force at the time of the law’s passage may be continued,
  • The prohibition of pre-existing condition exclusions,
  • The proscription of lifetime and annual benefit limits,
  • The limitation of health coverage rescissions,
  • The requirement for certain patient protections, and
  • The requirement that plans covering children extend child coverage until age 26;
• Tax credits available to small businesses to encourage them to sponsor employee health plans;
• Shared responsibility for certain large employers to provide employee health coverage and the tax penalties imposed for noncompliance;
• Various personal income tax changes affecting taxpayers; and
• Tax credits authorized to help individuals maintain minimum essential coverage.