California's Hidden Non-Dependent Tax On Health Premiums

A part of the PPACA (ObamaCare) provides that parents may add children to their employer-sponsored coverage plan up to age 26, whether a dependent student or not.

Turns out California's tax law requires the state to levy taxes on any amount of premium paid by the employer for non-dependent children of employees.

Many California workers added non-dependent children under age 26 to their group health plans in favor of paying premiums for the coverage. According the the Sacramento Bee article, the result is a bump in taxable income to reflect the employer's contribution.

See the article here.

Large Companies Contemplate Dropping Employee Health Coverage

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that several very large companies "have concluded that they might be financially better off canceling their health care coverage and moving their workers to government-subsidized exchanges that will be available in four years".

At least four companies have investigated to varying degrees the impact of dropping health care coverage and pushing their workers onto the new exchanges, where they will be able to buy their own insurance.

While doing this would subject companies to fines, the size of the fines would be substantially less than the cost of providing health insurance to their workers.

The four companies identified so far are:

*AT&T
*Verizon Communications, Inc.
*Caterpillar, Inc.
*Deere and Co.

If these four are looking at this option, it is a pretty safe bet that other large employers are doing the same.