The IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service has posted several useful tools for individuals and employers to help determine how the ACA may affect them and to estimate ACA related credits and payments.
The Employer Shared Responsibility Provision Estimator helps employers understand how the Employer Mandate works and how the penalties for not complying with the Employer Mandate may apply. Employers can use the estimator to determine:
- The number of their full-time employees, including full-time equivalent employees
- Whether they might be an Applicable Large Employer (ALE)
- If they are an ALE, an estimate of the maximum amount of the potential liability for the employer shared responsibility payment that could apply to them, based on the number of full-time employees that they report, if they fail to offer coverage to their full-time employees
Caution: this tool is only designed for use in 2016 and forward (it is not designed to estimate 2015 penalties). Moreover, the tool can only provide an estimate of the maximum amount of potential liability for the employer shared responsibility payment.
