Employer Shared Responsibility

Contributing employers to multiemployer plans were relieved by the Treasury Department’s interim guidance stating that they will not be subject to the employer shared responsibility payments under the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) with respect to employees for whom they contribute to a multiemployer plan that provides minimum value, offers dependent child coverage and is affordable.  (See our blog posting here.)  Since relief is provided for all employees for whom contributions are made to a multiemployer plan, regardless of whether coverage is offered, the question of whether an employee is full-time is largely irrelevant to the relief.  That led many employers to believe mistakenly that they do not have to determine the full-time status of these employees, allowing these employers to avoid the administrative complications associated with tracking employees who, in many industries, are variable hour employees.  Unfortunately, this belief is not well-grounded.