Long Island Employers Face March 31 Tax Form Deadline
The ACA's 1095-C tax forms must be filed by March 31. Late filing triggers $310 penalties per employee, plus IRS audits. Many Long Island employers miss this deadline because they don't track the right data all year.
Nassau County accounting firm owner Sarah Chen thought she was done with compliance headaches after open enrollment ended in December. Then her CPA reminded her about the March 31 deadline for 1095-C tax forms. "I had no idea we needed to file anything," Chen says. "We have 22 employees, so missing this deadline could cost us $6,820 in penalties - money we definitely don't have sitting around."
The Affordable Care Act requires employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees to file 1095-C forms annually, reporting health insurance coverage offered to each employee. But here's what catches many Long Island business owners off guard: the penalty for late filing isn't a slap on the wrist. It's $310 per employee, per form.
The Numbers That Matter
For a 50-employee dental practice in Suffolk County, missing the March 31 deadline means $15,500 in penalties. A 75-employee medical group faces $23,250. These aren't negotiable fees - they're automatic penalties that hit your business whether you can afford them or not.
But the financial pain doesn't stop there. Late 1095-C filing often triggers IRS audits of your entire benefits program. Proper plan administration requires year-round tracking of employee hours, coverage offers, and enrollment decisions - data many employers only realize they need when the deadline approaches.
What Long Island Employers Get Wrong
The biggest mistake? Thinking this is just a paperwork exercise. According to the IRS, 1095-C forms must accurately reflect coverage offered throughout the previous year. This means tracking:
- Every employee's hours worked each month
- Health insurance offers made to each employee
- Coverage start and end dates
- Employee premium contributions
- Dependent coverage eligibility
Most small business owners discover in March that they don't have this data organized properly. Scrambling to reconstruct a year's worth of benefits decisions while facing a hard deadline creates exactly the kind of expensive mistakes that trigger audits.
The Real Cost of Getting This Wrong
Beyond the immediate $310 per employee penalty, late 1095-C filing signals to the IRS that your benefits program may not be compliant. This often leads to:
- Full ACA compliance audits
- Employer mandate penalty reviews (up to $3,860 per employee annually)
- Detailed documentation requests going back multiple years
- Professional fees for attorneys and consultants to handle the audit
A Ronkonkoma manufacturing company learned this the hard way last year. Their late 1095-C filing led to a compliance audit that uncovered $47,000 in employer mandate penalties they didn't know they owed.
Why This Deadline Sneaks Up on Employers
Unlike payroll taxes or workers' compensation premiums, 1095-C filing happens just once per year. It's easy to forget until the deadline looms. Plus, the March 31 date falls during busy season for many professional service firms - exactly when owners have the least time to focus on benefits administration.
The forms themselves are complex, requiring specific codes for different types of coverage offers and employment situations. Getting the coding wrong doesn't just delay filing - it can indicate non-compliance to IRS reviewers.
What Smart Employers Do Differently
Successful Long Island employers treat 1095-C compliance as a year-round process, not a March crisis. They establish systems in January to track the required data monthly, making March filing straightforward rather than stressful.
This means integrating benefits tracking with payroll systems, documenting coverage decisions as they're made, and reviewing compliance quarterly instead of scrambling annually.
Getting Ahead of Next Year
Even if you're cutting it close for this March 31 deadline, now is the perfect time to set up systems for next year. The post-enrollment period - when benefit decisions are fresh but next year's tracking hasn't started yet - offers the ideal window to implement proper documentation procedures.
Consider this: spending time now to organize your benefits administration prevents not just next year's penalties, but also the stress of deadline pressure and audit risk that comes with poor record-keeping.
Rather than treating March 31 as an annual surprise, Benton Oakfield handles 1095-C preparation and filing as part of ongoing plan administration, ensuring Long Island employers never face last-minute scrambles or costly penalties.
Compliance Note: Benefit plan rules and tax implications vary based on company size and location. This summary is for informational purposes only. Please contact your Benton Oakfield representative to review how these changes impact your specific plan documents.
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