Congress repeals IRS reporting requirement

President Obama has signed legislation ending the lengthy battle to remove a nagging provision of the health care reform legislation. Congress overwhelmingly passed a measure to repeal the 1099 reporting requirements.

The provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would have required business owners to send the IRS a 1099 form for every service provider or vendor with which they had at least $600 in total aggregate transactions during the year, as of 2012.

The reporting provision was intended to improve tax compliance and help pay for the health care law. But businesses complained about the extensive paperwork involved.

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Despite wide ranging agreement that the provision was a mistake, Congress had not been able to come to agreement on a way to make up the $22 billion cost to the U.S. Treasury of repealing the tax reporting provision.

H.R. 4, The Comprehensive 1099 Taxpayer Protection and Repayment of Exchange Subsidy Overpayments Act of 2011, amends the Internal Revenue Code to repeal the requirements for the reporting to the IRS payments of $600 or more to corporations that are not tax exempt and of gross proceeds paid in consideration for any type of property.

It would reduce some health insurance subsidies provided to low- and middle-income Americans who purchase health insurance under the new law. Specifically, it increases for taxable years ending after Dec. 31, 2013, the advance applicable dollar amount of the tax credit for health care premium assistance for taxpayers whose household income is less than 400 percent of the poverty line.President Obama signed the measure April 14.

Read more at the WorkersComp Forum homepage.

May 2, 2011

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