Plan Sponsors See Problems Ahead Absent Extended Reporting Relief

February 1, 2021

Internal Revenue Service
Attn: CC:PA:LPD:PR (Notice 2020-76) Room 5203
P.O. Box 7604
Ben Franklin Station
Washington, D.C. 20044

To Whom it May Concern:

The Corporate Health Care Coalition (CHCC) is pleased to have the opportunity to provide comment on Federal Register Notice 2020-76, entitled “Transition Relief Related to Health Coverage Reporting Required by Sections 6055 and 6056 for 2020.”

CHCC is comprised of companies from varying industries that compete in the global marketplace and sponsor health plans for the benefit of our employees and other beneficiaries. CHCC companies are committed to providing access to affordable, quality health care benefits. We offer market-leading health and well-being benefits to recruit and retain top talent, but even more importantly, to maintain a healthy and productive workforce which is key to any company's success. Collectively, CHCC member companies provide health benefits for nearly 5 million Americans across every state in the nation.

Sections 6055 and 6056 were added to the Internal Revenue Code as a result of sections 1502 and 1514 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, enacted in 2010. Sections 6055 and 6056 require health insurance issuers, as well as self-insured employers (generally those with 50 or more full-time employees in the previous year) to file and furnish to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) information and statements relating to the provision of health insurance to its full-time employees. Sections 6721 and 6722 of the Internal Revenue Code impose penalties regarding failure to timely furnish this information or for furnishing an incorrect or incomplete submission.

Notice 2020-76 extends the due date for certain 2020 information-reporting requirements under sections 6055 and 6056 of the Internal Revenue Code from January 31, 2021, to March 2, 2021. This action is consistent with a series of notices by which the Department of the Treasury and the IRS have extended relief from the due dates for information-reporting requirements under sections 6055 and 6056, as well as relief from the penalties in sections 6721 and 6722, in years 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. The Treasury Department and IRS additionally seek comment in Notice 2020-76 as to whether similar relief ought to be provided in future years.

CHCC believes that extended relief from the due dates associated with Sections 6055, 6056, as well as Sections 6721 and 6722, is warranted in future years. The January 31 deadline is problematic for several reasons, including the timing of the availability of needed information to complete the forms necessary. Specifically, calculations to produce Form 1095-Cs require consolidating data from multiple systems (e.g., payroll and time tracking systems, benefit enrollment systems, COBRA and retiree-medical vendor systems, etc.) into a single formatted file before the information can be used to perform affordability, offer of coverage, and Line 14/16 code calculations. Employers typically cannot report December hours worked to determine full-time equivalent employees until after the pay period ends in early January. It can take at least three and as many as seven weeks to upload and process data, resolve data errors, generate and review draft Form 1095-Cs, make corrections and prepare them for electronic delivery and/or printing. Potential mailing delays should also be considered. With six years of experience performing the necessary calculations and creating the forms, and with a solid process in place, we can confirm that the January 31 mailing deadline can typically only be met when data from all sources is available by January 4 and there are no data challenges. Accordingly, we fully expect employers to continue to need an extension to the mailing deadline in the future.

Thank you in advance for your consideration of our comments.

Sincerely,

The Corporate Health Care Coalition