Tip Tuesday! Bill would bring back popular Obamacare workaround: Stand-alone HRAs

by Jared Bilski

Remember that $36K penalty the IRS felt the need to remind everybody it would impose on employers that tried to give employees untaxed funds to purchase healthcare coverage? Well, there’s now hope that some employers won’t have to worry about this after all. 

That’s because legislators re-introduced the Small Business Healthcare Relief Act in both the House (H.R. 2911) and the Senate (S. 1697).

The timing of the legislation is significant because the penalty phase for stand-alone HRA usage kicked in on July 1, 2015.

If passed, the bill would provide an exception to Obamacare regs and allow some small businesses to use pre-tax dollars to help employees purchase healthcare benefits on the exchanges, as well as other out-of-pocket medical expenses. This is a tactic some employers were planning to take in lieu of providing their employees with health insurance under Obamacare’s employer mandate.

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