Employee benefits
The IRS answered questions concerning COBRA continuation coverage premium assistance and the corresponding tax credit that employers, plan administrators, and insurers may claim under the American Rescue Plan Act.
Dependent care assistance program benefits carried over or available during an extended claims period under special temporary COVID-19 relief provisions retain their status as excludable from employees’ gross income and wages, the IRS explains in a notice.
Maximum health savings account annual contributions will increase by $50 to $3,650 for self-only and $100 to $7,300 for family coverage for 2022. Inflation adjustments in Rev. Proc. 2021-25 also increase maximum out-of-pocket expenses for high-deductible health plans.
Employee benefit plan tax professionals need to dig deep in search of affiliates under common control and must carefully assess whether plans are skewed in favor of highly compensated employees.
The IRS issued guidance on how employers can amend their health flexible spending arrangements and dependent care assistance programs to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the IRS is allowing employers to switch from the vehicle lease valuation method to the cents-per-mile method for determining the value of an employee’s personal use of a vehicle during the pandemic.
The IRS issued the 2021 standard mileage rates for use in computing the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving expense purposes. The rates all decreased from 2021 to 2020.
The IRS finalized proposed rules on the disallowance of deductions for transportation fringe benefits, which was enacted by the law known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
The IRS finalized proposed regulations on the qualified plan loan rollover rules amended by the law known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act with just one change in response to a comment.
The IRS announced that the income ranges for employee participation in workplace 401(k) plans and IRA contributions will increase from 2020 to 2021. Most of the other retirement plan contribution limits stayed the same, however.
The IRS issued guidance adding state unclaimed property fund distributions to the list of reasons that taxpayers may self-certify that they missed the 60-day deadline to roll over funds to a qualified retirement plan.
The IRS issued the 2021 limit for excepted benefit health reimbursement arrangements using the Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers inflation-adjustment method.
The IRS makes clear in final regulations that the health care premium tax credit calculation is unaffected by the personal exemption decrease to zero.
The IRS issued proposed regulations explaining the extended rollover period that applies to qualified plan loan offsets after the rules were amended by the law known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
The IRS issued guidance on how employers should report qualified sick and family leave paid to employees under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
The IRS provides relief for taxpayers who had already taken required minimum distributions (RMDs) in 2020 before the CARES Act suspended the RMD requirement for 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic and its effect on taxpayers and the stock market.
The IRS issued proposed regulations implementing changes to Sec. 274 that disallow a deduction for the expense of any Sec. 132(f) qualified transportation fringe provided to an employee, effective for amounts paid or incurred after Dec. 31, 2017.
The IRS announced that employers may make donations this year to charitable organizations that provide relief to COVID-19 pandemic victims in exchange for personal leave that their employees forgo.
The IRS issued proposed regulations defining direct primary care arrangements with doctors and health care sharing ministries and how payments for them can qualify as Sec. 213 medical expenses.
In another response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the IRS is allowing retirement plan participants who want to take coronavirus-related distributions from their retirement plans to provide remote signatures, even for spousal consents.