On “Tax Day” this Tuesday, Acting IRS Commissioner David Kautter testified before the House Oversight Committee on several tax-enforcement issues, including the current status of the employer mandate. Speculation grew last year that the Trump Administration may attempt to relax enforcement of both the employer and individual mandates through its regulatory authority, following President Trump’s executive order issued on his first day in office to ease the burden of the ACA. However, Acting Commissioner Kautter clarified during the hearing that he was unable to end enforcement of the employer mandate because, unlike the individual mandate penalties that will be eliminated next year, the employer mandate remains in statute.

With regard to ongoing enforcement activities, Kautter estimated that the IRS has sent roughly 10,000 226J enforcement letters since last fall, but noted that more than 80% of them have been resolved with no fines owed by the employer. For information on the 226J letter and how to respond to them, NAHU encourages members to review our Compliance Corner webinar on this subject. As a reminder, while the individual mandate penalties will be zeroed out beginning in 2019, they remain in effect this year and for prior tax years, but the employer mandate was not modified through any legislative measures.

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, the healthcare focus has largely centered on legislation to address the opioid epidemic. The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee held a hearing this week on the personal impacts of the opioid epidemic and the Senate Finance Committee held a similar hearing on the role of that Medicare and Medicaid can play in curbing the epidemic. Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) indicated that the committee will be introducing bipartisan legislation to expand alternative treatments. The hearings came as Attorney General Jeff Sessions unveiled a proposed rule aimed at reducing “pill dumping” by establishing limits on the amount of pills that can be produced annually. It is directed at preventing occurrences such as those in a West Virginia town of 2,900 residents receiving more than 20 million prescriptions over the course of a decade.