Payroll is a complex part of every bookkeeper’s job, new requirements for 2012 include showing company paid health insurance premiums on employees W-2′s; making things even more complex. See this question asked by a reader of our blog.
I have a question that I’ve been searching for an answer to, I’ve even asked our Tax Accountant about it. In 2012 it is mandatory that we show the company share of employee health insurance on W-2′s, do you know if there is there a way in QuickBooks to track this on a regular basis, so that it shows on the employees paystubs and then have it flow through onto the W-2 at the end of the year? Thanks, Kathleen S.
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Answer:
Hi Kathleen,
Yes, you can set QuickBooks up to track employer paid health insurance contributions, have those contribution amounts appear on employee pay stubs and then have the full yearly contribution appear on the employee’s W-2. I’ve been doing this for a long time – thankfully the QuickBooks payroll module is pretty flexible, the hardest part is the setup – and then the maintenance.
Important things to take into consideration prior to setting up QuickBooks to track this information – OR the planning stages:
- Health insurance premiums for all employees are usually paid on a monthly basis in one lump sum made up of a specific amount for each employee based on the type of plan or coverage each employee has. The chances are that you pay your employees more often than that – so you want to set up a method of tracking company contributions for health insurance based on how often you pay your employees – so that the contribution is done automatically for you when you run your payroll rather than having to “remember” to do something once a month.
- Will the company pay 100% of the cost of health insurance or will the employee also pay a portion through a payroll deduction?
- How many pay periods your company actually has during the year.
- When does your company health insurance policy renew?
- Will you also be using/taking credit for company paid health insurance against the full fringe benefit amount that must be paid when employees work on prevailing wage jobs?
We’ve put together a video demonstrating the required QuickBooks setup and a free Excel Spreadsheet for tracking the costs of 100% company paid health insurance.
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Information from the IRS regarding Employer Paid Health Insurance Reporting:
Employer-Provided Health Coverage — Not Taxable; Reporting is Voluntary for All Employers for 2011 and Small Employers for 2012
Starting in tax year 2011, the Affordable Care Act requires employers to report the cost of coverage under an employer-sponsored group health plan. To give employers more time to update their payroll systems, Notice 2010-69, issued last fall, made this requirement optional for all employers in 2011. IRS Notice 2011-28 provided further relief for smaller employers filing fewer than 250 W-2 forms by making the reporting requirement optional for them at least for 2012 and continuing this optional treatment for smaller employers until further guidance is issued. Notice 2011-28 also includes information on how to report, what coverage to include and how to determine the cost of the coverage.
The 2011 Form W-2 is available for viewing on IRS.gov. This is the W-2 that most employees will receive in early 2012. The form includes the codes that employers may use to report the cost of coverage under an employer-sponsored group health plan. {Currently, as of 12/12/2011, you will report Health Insurance Costs in Box 12 of the W-2 using code DD}.
This reporting is for informational purposes only, to show employees the value of their health care benefits so they can be more informed consumers. The amount reported does not affect tax liability, as the value of the employer contribution to health coverage continues to be excludible from an employee’s income, and it is not taxable.
What types of health care coverage must be included in the amount reported on the Form W-2?
A. Employers are required to report the total cost of all “applicable employer-sponsored coverage” provided to an employee. For any employee, “applicable employer-sponsored coverage” is coverage under a group health plan that the employer makes available to the employee that is non-taxable to the employee (or that would be non-taxable if the coverage were employer-provided).
Certain types of coverage are excluded from the definition of applicable employer-sponsored coverage and are not included in the amount reported. These types of coverage are:
- coverage only for accident, or disability income insurance, or any combination of these coverages;
- supplemental liability insurance;
- liability insurance (including general liability insurance and automobile liability insurance);
- workers’ compensation or similar insurance;
- automobile medical payment insurance;
- credit-only insurance; and
- other similar insurance coverage specified in regulations, if the benefits for medical care are secondary or incidental to other insurance benefits.
In addition, employers should not include the following amounts in calculating an employee’s total cost of coverage:
For additional information on this topic, visit these links:
- Affordable Care Act Tax Provisions - http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=220809, 00.html
- 2011 Form W-2 - http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw2.pdf
- IR-2011-31 - http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=237870,00.html
- Notice 2010-69 http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-2010-69.pdf
- Notice 2011-28 http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-11-28.pdf
- Employer-Provided Health Coverage Information Reporting Requirements – Q & A - http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=237894,00.html
- IRS YouTube Video – Health Care: W-2 Health Insurance Reporting - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= TFepqFnEj5I&feature= youtu.be
- IRS Webinar - Reporting of Employer Healthcare Coverage on Form W-2 - http://www.irsvideos.gov/ReportingEmployerHealthcareCoverage/
- New Info added 1/3/2012 – IRS Notice 2012-09 – http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-12-09.pdf – Interim Guidance on Informational Reporting to Employees of the Cost of Their Group Health Insurance Coverage
We hope that you’ve found this post informative, if so please take a moment to leave a comment or share it on your favorite social network.
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Update 12/16/2011 – Intuit Releases Payroll Update 21201
Late yesterday afternoon Intuit released Payroll Update 21201, which includes revised tax tables and several form updates. Included in this update is the option for reporting Health Insurance under Code DD on employee W-2′s.
When creating or editing an existing Company Contribution item type for Employer Paid Health Insurance, when you get to the Tax Tracking Type window, from the drop down list, select Health Coverage Cost, as shown in the screenshot below:
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We will be updating our video by the first of the year to reflect the actual selection of the correct tax tracking type.
Protecting your business from fraud and theft is a tough job these days – are you doing enough as a business owner to ensure that your assets are safe?
Did you know that according to a 2010 report from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, incidents of occupational fraud are 31% more likely to occur at small business as opposed to larger companies? And, to add insult to injury, as many as 40% of small business owners are embezzlement victims and that a staggering one-third of all bankruptcies are the direct result of internal theft!
To be hones, I had no idea of these statistics – until I read a very interesting article yesterday called Five steps to prevent small business fraud, in the Hartford Business Journal Online.
The article discussed:
- Managing finances using secure online banking
- Protecting computer systems and practicing online awareness
- Safely handling sensitive documents and financial statements
- Obtaining fidelity insurance {which protects your business against criminal acts such as robbery, embezzlement, forgery, and credit card fraud}, and
- Incorporating appropriate checks and balances
The author, Michael LaBella, offered some excellent advice about incorporating appropriate checks and balances;
Every small business owner should perform an internal review and assessment of company finances on a monthly basis. Make sure payment amounts match all invoices and check for any missing documents. Running random audits or having a third party audit your books once a year will show your employees you are serious about fraud and deter them from committing deceptive acts.
While that’s very good advice, I don’t think it’s quite enough, below are some additional tips for protecting your business from fraud.
- As a business owner you should be signing all of the checks written on your company checking account – throw out the signature stamp and don’t use the QuickBooks option that allows checks to be printed with your signature already in place! That’s just asking for trouble…..
- Balance your checking account and credit card statements each month – that way you can “see” those transactions and verify where the company’s money has gone.
Yes, this means more for you to do as a business owner – and I’m sure that you already have a full plate – but isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?
What safeguards do you have in place to protect your business from fraud?
I hope you’ve found this article to be helpful and thought provoking, if so please take a moment to leave a comment or share it with others on your favorite social media platform using the buttons below.
QuickBooks Payroll, when properly set up, is capable of tracking and including the cost of your General Liability Insurance; as well as many of the other things that costly construction software does automatically – with a little more effort on your part and without the big price tag.
Tracking General Liability Insurance, when it is based on gross payroll, and getting those costs into Job Costing Reports is vital for many businesses, especially the construction industry.
NOTE: The best time to implement this procedure is when your General Liability Insurance Policy period starts.
The following instructions will allow you to track your General Liability Insurance costs when it is based on gross payroll and get those costs into your job costing reports without making complex journal entries. It will also help you be aware of how much your premium payment will be so that you aren’t in for an unwelcome surprise when the bill comes in or your policy is audited.
QuickBooks Setup for accruing the cost of General Liability Insurance
Example:
In our example general liability insurance is calculated at $6.36 per $1,000.00 in wages for field workers – realize that each type of work that you perform could very well have a different experience rate (just like Worker’s Comp).
Step 1:
Come up with a rate per $100 in wages so this can be calculated for each employee with each paycheck, if paychecks are usually less than $1,000.00 per employee per week.
- $1,000.00 divided by 10 = $100.00
- $6.36 divided by 10 = $0.636
If your policy has different experience rates for different work or employee classifications you’ll want to determine this cost for each different rate.
Step 2:
Create an Other Current Liability Account on your Chart of Accounts to track your Accrued General Liability Insurance. From the Lists menu –> choose Chart of Accounts –> click the Account button at the lower left –> click New –> select the radio button next to Other Account Types and choose Other Current Liability from the drop down menu.
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Click the Continue button and add the details for the account.
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Click Save & Close.
Step 3:
Create the Cost of Good Sold and/or Overhead accounts to track the expense to the company. A Cost of Goods Sold account would be used for field workers and an Expense Account for Overhead and Office workers. From the Lists menu –> choose Chart of Accounts –> click the Account button at the lower left –> click New –> select the radio button next to Other Account Types and choose Cost of Goods Sold from the drop down menu – OR – click the radio button next to Expense.
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Click Save & Close.
Step 4:
Create Company Contribution Payroll Items to track the costs while running payroll. From the Lists menu –> choose Payroll Item List –> click the Payroll Item button at the lower left –> choose New –> select Custom Setup –> click Next –> click Company Contribution –> click Next –> type in the name for this item and select the Track Expenses by Job option –> click Next –> choose your General Liability Insurance Carrier –> from the Liability Account drop down select the account you created in Step 2 –> from the Expense account drop down select the account you created in Step 3.
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Click Next –> Tax tracking type should be set to None –> click Next –> Taxes window should have no tax types checked –> click Next –> Calculate based on quantity window select the radio button to Calculate this item based on quantity –> click Next –> Default rate and limit window, enter the amount that you calculated in Step 1 and make sure that the This is an annual limit option is NOT checked. Click Finish.
Step 5:
Add the company contribution item(s) to Employee Defaults so all new employees who are hired will automatically have this item automatically included in their employee records.
From the Edit menu –> choose Preferences –> select Payroll & Employees –> click on the Company Preferences tab –> click the Employee Defaults button –> click into the Item Name column of the Additions, Deductions and Company Contribution section and select the item(s) you created in Step 4.
Step 6:
Add the company contribution item(s) to existing Employee Records in order to calculate your accrued liability when processing payroll.
From the Employee Center, edit each employee record going to the Payroll & Compensation tab –> click into the Item Name column of the Additions, Deductions and Company Contribution section and select the item(s) you created in Step 4.
Calculating General Liability Insurance Costs When Running Payroll
When running payroll you’ll want to open (view) the detail of each employees paycheck –> determine gross payroll ($280.00 + $1,120.00 = $1,400.00 – per the sample paycheck below) –> take total gross and divide it by 100 (1,400.00 divided by 100 = 14) –> enter 14 in the Quantity column next to the company contribution item and click Enter. QuickBooks will then calculate the General Liability Insurance for this employee and display that amount in the Company Summary section.
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By implementing and following this procedure your General Liability Insurance will be included in your Payroll Summary Reports, Profit & Loss, and Profit & Loss by Job Reports. Additionally, your accrued liability will be displayed on Balance Sheet Reports and can be viewed at any time simply by viewing your Chart of Accounts List.
One final note; when it’s time to pay your General Liability Insurance policy premium you will cut the check using the payroll Pay Liabilities function – DO NOT USE the Write Checks feature.
On March 30, 2010, President Obama signed the Health Care Reconciliation Act which added a tax credit for employee health insurance expenses of small employers for taxable years beginning in 2010 through taxable years beginning in 2013.
The tax credit is available if:
(1) the employer has fewer than 25 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs)
(2) the average annual wages per FTE is less than $50,000, and
(3) the employer maintains a “qualifying arrangement”
The credit is fully available to an employer with 10 FTEs and average annual wages of $25,000. The credit phases out pro rata so that an employer with 25 FTEs with average annual wages of $50,000 is not entitled.
Number of Employees for the Taxable Year
The number of FTEs is determined by counting employees who perform services for the employer. Generally, sole proprietors, partners in a partnership, more than 2 percent shareholders of an S corporation, and more than 5 percent owners of any other business are not included in the count. In addition, seasonal workers who work fewer than 120 days in the year are not counted.
Next, determine the number of hours that each worker who is included in the count works during the taxable year, but not more than 2080 hours for any employee. Generally, you count hours for which the employee is paid for working. You can also count up to 160 hours of paid time off.
Determine the number of FTEs by dividing the total number of hours worked by each employee by 2080. A fraction is rounded down to the next whole number.
Average Annual Wages per FTE for the Taxable Year
Determine the average annual wages by dividing
(1) the total wages paid by the employer to the employees counted as FTEs by
(2) the number of FTEs for the year, and
(3) rounding the result down to the nearest $1,000.
For example, if the employer pays $224,000 in total wages and has 10 FTEs, it pays average annual wages per FTE of $22,000 ($224,000 divided by 10 equals $22,400, which is rounded down to the nearest $1,000).
Qualifying Arrangement
The credit is available only for premiums paid by the employer under a qualifying arrangement. The health plan is a qualifying arrangement if the employer pays a uniform percentage (but not less than 50%) of the premium.
The amount of employer-paid premiums that can be used in calculating the credit is limited to the average premium for the small group market in the employer’s state. The average premium information is included in the instructions for Form 8941(used to compute the credit)
Transition Relief for 2010.
Because the credit applies to 2010, including premiums paid by the employer before the Healthcare Reform Act became law, if the employer pays at least 50 percent of the premium for single coverage, it will be deemed to satisfy the uniformity requirement.
Determining the Credit
For taxable employers, the maximum credit is 35 percent of the employer’s premium payments. For a tax exempt employer, the credit is 25 percent.
The credit phases out if the number of FTEs is greater than 10 and/or the average wage per FTE exceeds $25,000. The reduction has two parts: a reduction if the number of FTEs is greater than 10 and a reduction if the average wage is greater than $25,000. If the number of FTEs is greater than 10, the credit is reduced by a fraction, the numerator of which is the number of FTEs over 10 and the denominator of which is 15. If the average wage exceeds $25,000, the credit is reduced by a fraction, the numerator of which is the amount of wages over $25,000 and the denominator of which is $25,000. If both reductions apply, each amount is subtracted from the credit.
For example, if a taxable employer has 12 FTEs, average wages of $30,000, and an initial credit of $33,600, the reductions are determined as follows:
- reduction for FTEs over 10: 2/15 times $33,600 equals $4,480
- reduction for average wages over $25,000: 5,000/25,000 times $33,600 equals $6,720
The total reduction is $11,200 ($4,480+$6,720) and the allowable credit is $22,400.
Claiming the Credit
Form 8941 if used to figure the credit . A taxable employer treats the credit as a general business credit and offsets its tax liability for the year by the amount of the credit. The credit can be used in some cases against the employer’s alternative minimum tax liability.
Taking a Health Insurance credit against the full prevailing wage fringe benefit and reporting it correctly on the Federal WH-347 Certified Payroll Report can be very confusing. This question was asked by a reader who recently requested our 4 Ways Contractors Pay Prevailing Wage Fringe Benefits eBook.
This is an issue that has been extensively belabored in our office (by me).
We are an open shop, but sometimes do jobs with a union agreement. We do a lot of prevailing wage jobs and private work.
We offer all of our employees health insurance – the company paying 75% of the monthly premium and the employees paying the remaining 25% through employee deductions.
It gets so confusing and reading all the blogs etc. does not clarify it for me. I must be slow 
How can I be sure that I am correctly accounting for this?
Constantly confused…. Thank you
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Taking a Health Insurance credit against the full prevailing wage fringe benefit IS confusing, it’s NOT just you.
From what “I” know (and realize that I’m in Vermont and know enough about prevailing wage rules & regulations to be dangerous – I may not know all the fine print for your specific state). I will explain what I know and you should then verify it with the Prevailing Wage Unit of your local Department of Labor just to make sure.
First you are going to need to determine what the monthly company contribution is for each employee, and for the sake of the rest of this example; let’s assume that we have an employee named Frank and your company pays $173.33 a month toward his health insurance.
Step 1 – Take the $173.33 -> multiply it by 12 = this equals the annual maximum company contribution ($2,079.96).
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Step 2 – Take the annual company contribution ($2,079.96) and divide it by 2080 hours -> this will give you an “hourly credit” of $0.99 – remember as far as prevailing wage fringes go everything is based on an hourly rate.
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In QuickBooks edit Frank’s employee record -> going to the Payroll and Compensation tab -> in the Additions, Deductions and Company Contributions block, find the health insurance contribution item and enter BOTH the hourly “rate” and the annual maximum.
So now let’s say that Frank is classed as a Flagger making $11.15 per hour and the full fringe package is $4.40 per hour and based on your calculations above he has a $1.00 per hour company paid health insurance contribution. In QuickBooks his rate of pay becomes $14.55 ($11.15 base PLUS $3.40 cash fringe).?
When you generate your Federal WH-347 certified payroll report you will want to pay special attention to Column 6 – Rate of Pay/Cash Fringes. Here you will want to report $11.15 (base rate)/$3.40 (balance of fringe benefit rate paid in cash).
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On the Statement of Compliance you will want to check BOTH boxes 4a – Fringe Benefits paid to approved plans, funds or programs AND 4b – Fringe Benefits are paid in cash.
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Important Notes:
- 2,080 hours is a construction industry standard number of work hours per year. It is based on 40 hours per week in a 52 workweek period.
- You’ll want to edit BOTH the company contribution and employee deduction payroll items and indicate that each has an annual limit in order for QuickBooks to automatically stop withholding when the annual limits have been reached.
- On a weekly basis, both the company contribution and employee deduction should be calculated based on the TOTAL number of hours the employee worked on BOTH private and prevailing wage jobs.
- When the company’s annual contribution limit has been reached you will want to “add” the credit back to the employee’s hourly rate of pay for the balance of the year.
- You’ll need to perform these calculations each time health insurance premiums change.
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Screenshots of the WH-347 Certified Payroll Report and Statement of Compliance were taken from actual reports that were generated using Certified Payroll Solution and QuickBooks data. Learn more about Certified Payroll Solution by clicking here.
Learn more tips like this by signing up for our 2 hour “How to Fulfill Your Certified Payroll Reporting Requirements” webinar.
