Obamacare

American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021

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With the latest covid relief / stimulus bill now signed into law, I wanted to give the usual summary of the key financial planning / tax-related elements that may impact clients. Another round of stimulus checks has gotten most of the press to date about the $1.9 trillion legislation, but there are quite a few provisions, including those stimulus checks, in here that are worth noting:

  • Direct Payments (Stimulus Checks) – $1400 per eligible individual, $2800 for joint filers, and $1400 per qualifying dependent (which include full-time students under 24 and adult dependents this time). The payment begins phasing out at $75k per individual filer and $150k per joint filer, and is completely phased out at $80k individual and $160k joint, regardless of the size of the payment (different that in previous rounds of stimulus). See the graphic from the Tax Foundation below for a visual depiction of the phaseouts. The IRS will use 2020 income if available, otherwise 2019 to determine the payments. These will be reconciled on 2021 tax forms so that anyone who should have received a payment based on 2021 income and didn’t, will get a credit for the missing amount. Anyone who received a payment and shouldn’t have based on 2021 income will not have to pay it back. Payments are set to start going out the weekend of 3/13/21.
  • Unemployment Benefits:
    • Extension to the first week of September of the additional $300/week of Federal unemployment benefits which is added on to existing state benefits.
    • New provision that exempts the first $10,200 per person of unemployment benefits from tax for 2020. Limited to those with AGI < $150k single or joint (all filers, no phaseouts). The IRS is expected to provide guidance in the coming weeks for those who already filed their 2020 returns and treated the unemployment benefits as taxable. Note that this is for 2020 only. It currently does not include 2021 benefits. The IRS has released guidance on how this should be reported for tax purposes for those who have not filed yet. Tax software will need to be updated over the next few weeks to reflect the change and make sure everything passes through to state returns correctly.
  • Child Tax Credit – formerly $2k per child under age 17, now raised to $3k per child for children age 6-17 and $3600 for those under age 6. Lower income phaseouts apply to the expanded credit through (starting at $150k married, 75k single and reducing the enhancement portion of the credit by $50 for each $1k of income over the threshold). The law also instructs the IRS to pay the Child Tax Credit periodically (monthly?) for the 2nd half of 2021, meaning additional periodic checks to be received by qualifying taxpayers. Keep an eye on this. While we don’t know yet how it will be implemented, if you start receiving checks for the credit through the year and you have withholding set to take the credit into account, then you’ll need to adjust withholding or you’ll wind up owing the credit back in April. When the IRS sets this up, they’re supposed to provide a website which will allow you to opt out. Keep in mind that the IRS hasn’t even opened some mail from mid-2020 yet, so they have a bit on their plate. A good article from Kiplinger in available with more details.
  • Dependent Care Credit – For 2021 only the credit will be worth up to 50% (was 35%) of eligible expenses up to $8k for one child or $16k for more than one (was $3k/$6k) with a sliding scale % based on income. It is reduced at income levels over $125k and reduced below the previous lower bound of 20% at income levels over $400k (i.e. this is a reduction in credit available at those levels vs. previous years).
  • Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (DCFSA) – for 2021 only, you can contribute a max of $10,500 (instead of the usual $5k) toward a DCFSA. But, your employer’s plan has to enact this change and they are not forced to do so. They’d also have to allow mid-year changes in contribution level (which was authorized under the last covid bill). Note that because of the enhancement to the Dependent Care Credit (see above), and the fact that any contributions to a DCFSA reduce the amount of expenses that qualify for the Dependent Care Credit, many taxpayers (generally AGI< mid $100,000’s) would be better off foregoing a DCFSA and using the Dependent Care Credit instead. Again, just for 2021.
  • Affordable Care Act (ACA) – increases subsidies for plans purchased through the ACA exchanges. This includes the level of subsidy for a given income level and the eligibility for any subsidy for a given income level (now > 400% of the Federal poverty level). Total cost after subsidy, regardless of income cannot exceed 8.5% of income. Effective for 2021 and 2022. Also, big change, excess subsidies received for 2020 only will not need to be paid back. And, (even bigger!) if you have any unemployment benefits in 2021, you’re subsidy for 2021 only is 100% of the cost of the second highest Silver plan available to you, regardless of your actual income.
  • COBRA Subsidies – covers 100% (!!!) of COBRA premiums for eligible individuals who are unemployed (lost job or reduced hours, not voluntary termination), and their families, Effective from enactment through 9/30/2021.
  • Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) – for 2021:
    • raises the maximum credit for those without children to ~$1500
    • makes 19-24 year old workers eligible if they are students
    • makes those over age 65 eligible
    • can use 2019 income to determine EITC instead of 2021.
  • Student Loan Forgiveness – will not be taxable for 2021-2025 (normally debt forgiveness is taxable as income). Note that the new law does not actually forgive any student loans.
  • Employee Retention Credit (ERC) – extended to 12/31/2021, adds new clauses that allow newly formed businesses post 2/15/20 to claim (which wouldn’t be able to claim the credit because they don’t have the required decline in revenue), and adds special benefits to “severely financially distressed employers” with revenue down 90%+ to the same quarter of 2019.
  • Paid Leave Credits – credits for employers that provide paid leave under certain situations (which is no longer mandated). For 4/1/21 – 9/30/21, eligible wages climb to $12k per employee (from $10k), includes vaccination leave as qualified, and increases the leave for self-employed individuals to 60 days (from 50).
  • Executive Compensation Limits – Businesses currently can’t deduct compensation > $1M for CEO, CFO, and the next three highest paid employees. This legislation increases that to the next eight highest paid employees starting in 2027.
  • $15B for new Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) grants and clarification that EIDL grants are non-taxable and the expenses the money is used to pay are still deductible.
  • $22B toward emergency rental assistance for individuals and families struggling to pay rent and utilities. Renters must meet several conditions to receive the assistance.
  • $10B toward assistance for homeowners struggling to pay their mortgage, utilities and other housing costs.
  • $86B toward rescuing multiple soon-to-fail-without-help union pension plans. The plans that will receive the money cover approximately 11 million people in various unionized trades.
  • $25B Restaurant Revitalization Fund to be administered by the SBA. These are non-taxable grants for qualified businesses.
  • $7B additional funding for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), mostly under the same rules as before.
  • $350 Billion for state and local government support, which could create more state/local level tax changes or stimulus actions.
  • Various other spending allocations for K-12 schools, vaccines, testing, etc., that are beyond the scope of the financial planning discussions so I won’t dive into the details here. You can read the table of contents of the actual bill/law and dive into those areas if you’re interested. The non-tax provisions are mostly written in English rather than legalese/financialese.

Obamacare Exchanges To Open 10/1

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The healthcare exchanges that were created under the Affordable Care Act (more commonly known as “Obamacare”) are due to open tomorrow, October 1st, 2013. Through these exchanges, anyone who wants to purchase health insurance, should be able to purchase it from a health insurance company, with coverage to begin on 1/1/14. To access the exchanges and a host of additional information around how the exchanges will function, go to www.healthcare.gov. That portal will contains links to the Federal exchange as well as links to the State exchanges in the case that you live in one of the states that have set up their own exchange. The 36 states that will use the Federal exchange are: Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Wyoming. All others, including Washington, D.C. will have their own exchange. The portal will guide you to the right place.

The exchanges will have plans grouped into the following 4 coverage tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. All plans must provide essential health coverage including prescriptions, preventive care, doctor visits, emergency services and hospitalization. The characteristics of each plan will fit the general model under one of these tiers so that those exchanges that have multiple insurers providing coverage can present apples-to-apples comparisons among those plans, but some insurers may offer additional coverage in certain areas (e.g. physical therapy). Bronze plans will generally be the lowest cost plan from a monthly premium perspective, but will be the highest cost from an out-of-pocket perspective if you need non-preventative care. Platinum plans are the opposite, with Silver and Gold fitting in between. You can expect a Bronze plan to cover about 60% of out-of-pocket costs after a deductible, Silver to cover 70% after a lower deductible, Gold to cover 80% after a still lower deductible, and Platinum to cover 90% after a low deductible.

The insurers themselves will provide a quote for the monthly cost of coverage based on some basic information that you provide. It’s important to note that pre-existing conditions are not a consideration for coverage or for the cost of coverage. There are a number of other government imposed rules, like not being able to charge older applicants an unreasonable amount more than younger applicants, that influence pricing. Of course the biggest influence, in theory, is that the insurers will be competing with each other for the business.

Once pricing for an applicant is determined, potential Federal subsidies could apply and reduce the cost of the monthly premiums. If you fall under 4x the Federal poverty level for the size of your family (~$46k for individuals + $16k per additional family member), you’ll usually qualify for a subsidy. You’ll have to estimate your income for the following year in order to receive the correct subsidy. If you estimate your income will allow you to qualify, but then your income is actually higher and you don’t qualify, this will be reconciled on your tax return and you will wind up paying back the subsidy amount. Kaiser has a calculator that can help estimate your subsidy.

On the other side of subsidies, those who opt not to purchase insurance and who are not covered by another plan (e.g. an employer-sponsored group plan), will face a penalty starting in 2014 at $95 or 1% of household income, whichever is higher. By 2016, it rises to $695 per individual or 2.5 percent of household income, whichever is greater. This is known as the “Individual Mandate”. The penalty will be paid as a tax when filing your tax return if you can’t prove that you have coverage.

In general, the exchanges will benefit those who are older, have income below the subsidy threshold, have pre-existing conditions, and/or don’t have employer-provided coverage. Most people fall into one of the following four groups as it pertains to health insurance, so I’ll divide the rest of this message accordingly. If you:

1) Have coverage through a large employer’s group plan – you are welcome to shop the exchanges for better or cheaper coverage, but are unlikely to find it. Large employer’s usually provide heavy subsidies for the cost of group insurance that makes that insurance cost less than the individual policies that you’ll find on the exchanges. Still, it doesn’t hurt to look and see what’s out there.

2) Have coverage through a small employer’s group plan or through your spouse’s or parent’s employer’s group plan – since small employers usually provide less of a subsidy for group plan, and many employers, regardless of size, provide less of a subsidy for spouses and dependents, the exchanges could provide a better option for you. Again, it doesn’t hurt to look and you might be surprised to find a better plan, especially is your income is below the subsidy threshold.

3) Have individual or family coverage that is purchased directly through an insurer (not a group plan) – you should definitely re-shop your insurance needs on the exchange. It’s similar to having a website that aggregates all auto insurance information for you so that you can compare between insurers. You’re likely to find a better deal than you’re getting today, especially if you’re over age 50 and have an income below the subsidy threshold. Note that there are no subsidies for individual or family policies that are purchased off-exchange.

4) Have no coverage – if you don’t have coverage because you have a pre-existing condition or because you can’t afford it, you’ll almost certainly benefit from the exchanges and should shop them during the open enrollment period. If you don’t have coverage because you have chosen not to have it, then you’ll need to compare the cost of the tax penalty for not having coverage with the cost of coverage you can obtain from the exchanges. While it may be cheaper to maintain no coverage and pay the tax penalty, when you consider the potentially catastrophic exposure to medical bills, I have to think you’re almost certainly better off with the insurance.

Again, www.healthcare.gov is the starting point for all of this. Expect a few technical glitches in the system over the first few days / weeks, but remember that coverage doesn’t start until 1/1/14 and open enrollment lasts until 3/31/14, and can be extended by certain life events after that date.

American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA) a.k.a. Fiscal Cliff Deal

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I’ve parsed through the legislation (which can be found here if you want to check it out for yourself), as well as a ton of analysis, and to the best of my ability, here’s a quick summary of the relevant portions of the new law that averted the tax portion of the fiscal cliff. Note that while $400k/450k are getting all the press for paying higher taxes, there are a number of provisions which impact $200k(single)/$250k(married), and one really big one that impacts everyone (Payroll Tax Holiday Ended):

· Income Tax Rates: All existing rates remain the same with brackets increased for inflation (10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, 35%) and a new 39.6% bracket begins at taxable income over $400k for singles and $450k for joint filers.

· Long-Term Capital Gains: These were set to move from 0% for the bottom two tax brackets and 15% for everyone else to 20% for everyone. The legislation keeps the 0% and 15% rates for everyone except those in the new 39.6% tax bracket. They’ll pay 20% (not including the new Obamacare Medicare Surtax, see below).

· Dividend Rates: These were set to move from 0% for the bottom two tax brackets and 15% for everyone else to ordinary income rates for everyone. The legislation keeps this rate tied to the long-term capital gains rate with the same rules as above.

· Estate Tax Rates & Exemption: Retained the $5M per person exemption (was set to reset to $1M) and kept it portable (each spouse gets $5M instead of the couple getting $10M which forces complicated bypass trusts to be set up to try to use the $5M from the first to die spouse). Set the top tax rate at 40% (up from 2012’s 35%, but down from the 55% to which 2013 was due to revert).

· AMT Exemption: Patched the AMT exemption amount to the 2011 amount, increased for inflation. This was a big one since it was 2012 they were fixing, not 2013. Even better, they permanently fixed this so that each year’s exemption will be indexed to inflation going forward. This means no end of year scramble to get an AMT patched passed each year.

· Phaseout of Itemized Deductions: this was due to happen in 2013 without any new law, but ATRA tweaked the thresholds. If you are Single with AGI over $250k or married with AGI over $300k, your itemized deductions will be reduced by 3% of the amount that your AGI exceeds the threshold, up to a maximum reduction of 80% of your itemized deductions. To simplify, if you’re over the threshold by $10k, you lose $300 of itemized deductions. If you’re over by $100k, you lose $3k.

· Phaseout of Exemptions: this was also due to happen in 2013, but ATRA unified the phaseout level with the Itemized deduction phaseout. If you are Single with AGI over $250k or married with AGI over $300k, your exemptions ($3800 per family member) are reduced by 2% for every $2500 that you’re over the threshold. To simplify, if you’re over by $10k, you lose 8% of your exemptions. If you’re over by $100k, you lose 80% of your exemptions. This can be a pretty big bite.

· Payroll Tax Holiday Ended: this was due to happen in 2011, but was extended for two years and now is finally gone. It impacts everyone with income from work (employment or self-employment) by restoring the employee portion of Social Security (FICA) tax to 6.2% from 4.2%. This means everyone will pay 2% more tax in getting this level back to its pre-2011 setting (which still grossly underfunds Social Security over the long-term).

· Marriage Penalty: The standard deduction for married filers and the 15% tax brackets were due to revert to 1.67x the single amounts. ATRA kept them at 2x the single amount and made that change permanent. There is still a very large marriage penalty in the code anyway, as described here.

· Bonus Depreciation & Higher 1st Year Expensing: For business owners, 50% bonus depreciation on new purchases is extended into 2013 as is the higher limit for immediate expensing of certain purchases (Section 179).

· Misc. Permanent Extensions: Child Tax Credit ($1k per child subject to limits), Exclusion for Employer Provided Tuition Assistance ($5250 tax free reimbursement).

· Misc. Temporary Extensions: American Opportunity Tax Credit (college), teacher’s deduction ($250), exclusion from discharge of debt on primary residence (no income on short-sale or foreclosure), deduction for Mortgage Insurance Premiums, Deduction for State and Local Sales Tax paid (big in no income tax states), Tuition Deduction.

While not included in the ATRA legislation, it’s important to remember that two new fairly large changes also being in 2013 as Obamacare is rolled out. They are:

1) 0.9% Medicare Surtax on earned income (income from work) that exceeds $200k (single) or $250k (married). It’s important to note here that this will cause underwithholding from your employer if you have multiple jobs or are marred and both spouses have income since payroll systems will not realize that your earned income will exceed $200k/250k until you exceed that amount from a single employer.

2) 3.8% Medicare Surtax on investment income (interest, dividends, capital gains, rents collected, passive business income) if your Adjusted Gross Income exceeds $200k (single) or $250k (married). While there is no withholding on most investment income and you’re used to paying tax when filing or making estimated tax payments on that income through the year, the 3.8% additional tax effectively raises the tax rates on interest, dividends, gains, etc., even if you don’t meet the now well-publicized $400k (single) / $450k (married) income from the fiscal cliff deal.

I have no doubt that more tax changes will come in 2013 and/or 2014 since ATRA only reduces the > $1 trillion deficit by ~$60 billion per year, so it’s hard to count on anything above as permanent even where legislation made it permanent. The next major debate, likely to be more focused on spending than taxes will be in February as the Debt Ceiling will need to be raised again at that time. It’s quite possible that taxes, especially beyond 2013, become part of that negotiation as well.