Counting Employees Vital to ACA Compliance

It's important to know how many full-time employees your company has in order to ensure compliance with the shared responsibility provisions ("pay or play") and corresponding information reporting requirements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—which apply only to applicable large employers(ALEs).

Determining ALE Status
Whether your company is considered an ALE for a particular calendar year depends on the size of your workforce during the preceding calendar year. You need to use information about the size of your workforce during 2017 to determine if your company is an ALE for 2018. If you averaged at least 50 full-time employees in 2017—including full-time equivalent employees (FTEs)—you will be deemed an ALE for 2018.

Identifying Full-Time Employees
For purposes of the ACA's pay or play and information reporting provisions:

• A full-time employee is, for a calendar month, an employee who is employed on average at least 30 hours of service per week (130 hours of service in a calendar month is treated as the monthly equivalent of at least 30 hours of service per week).
• A full-time equivalent employee is a combination of employees, each of whom individually is not a full-time employee, but who, in combination, are equivalent to a full-time employee.

For additional rules on determining who is a full-time employee, including what counts as an hour of service, click here.

Our HR Libraryhas an entire section dedicated to educating you on Health Care Reform, providing everything you need to stay up-to-date on the sweeping changes the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) has made. We can help determine if your company is an ALE this year (or will be next year). If so, CompletePay provides you and your employees with the necessary reporting to keep you in compliance.