Among all of the health care reform changes, an important—but critical—fact may have slipped by. The value of coverage for adult children is taxable income in the majority of states. While not an issue at the federal level, most states will, in fact, tax the value of this coverage. That is called imputed income. And, that is something you need to explain clearly to your employees and their families.
In a down economy, employees are watching every penny. And, while they might be happy to share the umbrella of your medical plan with their older child thanks to health care reform, they are still watching the bigger bite that coverage is taking out of their paycheck.
While it may be tempting to even the most savvy benefit managers to let this issue slide (sort itself out in the call center?), ask yourself this: can you clearly explain to an employee how their paycheck will change after adding a new adult child onto your plan? When an employee is depending on every dollar of their pay, it’s not always enough to say how much the coverage will cost.
Thanks to health care reform, our friends in payroll are sorting through the maze of federal and state taxation rules that come into play for adult children. You need to be in the loop. As you know, everything about health care reform implementation requires a teamwork mindset.
We want you to be successful with health care reform. And, our newest toolkit will take the stress out of communicating the complexity around imputed income. You’ll also get more help with adult dependent coverage. The result? A strategic, simple, compliance-kissed toolkit to make your life easier.
Answers to your own questions:
And you’ll get template language, in several different recommended media formats, to answer employee questions. Like:
Ed Bray, compliance guru with Burnham Benefits, already put his lawerly brain on it, so you’re one step ahead with your legal team.
Wondering how we came up with the idea for this toolkit? The credit actually goes to The Silicon Valley Employers Forum, who recognized the complex nature of this issue and asked us to help. This toolkit was originally created for their large-tech-company members and now you can have it too!
This toolkit will be available next week, but if you can’t wait to get your hands on it email us at imputedincome@benzcommunications.com and we’ll send you a coupon for a discount and let you know the minute it is available.
