23 Feb The Upside of the Affordable Care Act for Your Small Business
One of the most common misconceptions about the Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obama Care, is that every business owner in the country will now have to provide health care for it’s employees. This is simply not true. Businesses with less than 50 full time equivalent employees are NOT required to provide health insurance. There are benefits to doing so though.
We all know that health insurance is the most commonly sought benefit by employees. Attracting and retaining good people normally means offering some kind of benefit package that includes health care. Did you also know that if you have less than 25 full time employees and pay an average full time wage of less than $50,000 you may qualify for a Small Business Health Care Tax Credit that will credit you up to 35% of the premiums if you are a for-profit and up to 25% if you are a tax-exempt employer. It works on a sliding scale so the smaller the employer and the less the average wage the better the credit. In 2014 the percentages will increase to 50% and 35%.
Who will really benefit the most from this? The micro entrepreneur who is a one man show scraping by to launch the next great idea from his or her garage bringing home a paycheck less than $50k!
So do you qualify? Three quick steps the IRS has provided to help you figure it out.
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