| News from Washington |
| IRS: Connecticut Taxpayers Impacted by Storms Qualify for Tax Relief; Various Deadlines Postponed to June 17 The Internal Revenue Service announced tax relief for individuals and businesses in parts of Connecticut affected by severe storms, flooding and a potential dam breach that began on January 10. These taxpayers now have until June 17, 2024, to file various federal individual and business tax returns, make tax payments, and 2023 contributions to IRAs and HSAs. Read More |
| Fiduciary Proposal May Be Extremely Expensive to Implement, Oxford Survey Finds A survey conducted by Oxford Economics Ltd. estimated that the compliance costs associated with the Department of Labor’s fiduciary proposal could grossly exceed the estimates provided by the DOL. The survey estimated that $2.77 billion would be required to come into compliance with the proposal in the first year and ongoing compliance costs to be $2.5 billion per year. Read More |
| HSA Studies & Analysis |
| Forbes: Best Health Savings Accounts of January 2024 The best HSAs offer a variety of investment options, low fees and other attractive features. To come up with this list of the best HSAs, Forbes Advisor analyzed 28 accounts at 27 financial institutions. We ranked each institution on nine data points within the categories of investment options, fees, digital experience and customer experience. Read More |
| HSA Compliance Corner |
| Correcting Missed HSA Contributions How Can Employers Correct Missed HSA Contributions? Employers can make a deposit for a missed HSA contribution through the tax filing deadline (typically April 15) of the following year without the need to correct the employee’s Form W-2. After that date, employers have to consider the best approach based on all the facts and circumstances of the situation. Read More |
| Gym Memberships and Food as Qualified Expenses? Hold on! One of the hardest truths for potential and actual Health FSA enrollees and HSA owners to accept is that the federal tax code rewards medical treatments rather than prevention. Not fair? Perhaps. But those are the rules. You want to change them? Talk to your member of Congress. Be sure to understand the rules before your reimbursements come under the scrutiny of the IRS. Read More |
| Does COBRA Apply to Your Company’s HSA Contribution? I recently left my job and have continued my coverage through COBRA. Do I still receive my company’s periodic employer contribution? Typically, no. Your COBRA rights extend to your medical coverage. The financial component of the HSA program isn’t subject to COBRA, however. Your employer can stop contributions to former employees. Most companies do. Read More |
| Market Trends |
| High-Deductible Plan Enrollment Shrinks for 1st Time Since 2013 Fewer workers were enrolled in high-deductible plans in 2022 than in 2021, the first time that enrollment has dipped since 2013, according to a new analysis. In 2022, 53.6% of private-sector employees were enrolled in high-deductible plans, down from 55.7% in 2021. Fewer employers are offering high-deductible plans as the only option for employees than in 2018, the report says. Read More |
| HSAs & Retirement |
| How Medicare and Social Security Affect HSA Eligibility Because Medicare coverage cancels one’s HSA eligibility, enrolling in Medicare—either directly or by applying for Social Security benefits—means that individuals must stop contributing to an HSA. Advisors can help their clients who want to keep contributing to HSAs after age 65 by planning strategies that help to preserve their eligibility and maximize the amount they can contribute. Read More |
| Projected Health Care Costs for Medicare Beneficiaries Rose Again in 2023 According to new data from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a couple with high prescription drug expenditures will need to have saved as much as $413,000 to have a 90% chance of having enough money to cover their health costs in retirement. “An HSA can go a long way to help defray the significant costs of health care in retirement,” said EBRI researcher Jake Speigel. Read More |
| Maximizing Your HSA |
| What Is a Health Savings Account? In the landscape of healthcare financing, individuals and families seeking innovative ways to efficiently manage their medical expenses now have several options. One of those is an HSA, and their popularity is increasing in the U.S. Read on to learn about HSAs, how they work, their pros and cons and whether or not they’re a good fit for your savings and health care goals. Read More |
| 3 Reasons I Wish I Had a Health Savings Account in 2024 High-deductible health insurance plans aren’t something most people see as desirable, but in some cases they have one key benefit that low-deductible plans don’t: the opportunity to contribute to a Health Savings Account. It’s not an option I have this year, but I wish I did so I could take advantage of the following three benefits. Read More |
| How to Qualify for a Health Savings Account in 2024 If you want a better way to pay for out-of-pocket healthcare costs while saving money on taxes, contributing to an HSA is a great strategy. If you have an HSA-qualified insurance plan and have not yet opened an HSA, you should really consider opening an account in 2024. Here are a few reasons why an HSA is such a valuable tax benefit, and why you should open an HSA in 2024. Read More |
| 4 Common HSA Mistakes and How to Correct Them If you have a Health Savings Account, it’s surprisingly easy to make common mistakes. Fortunately, if you act quickly, correcting them and getting back on track isn’t difficult. Here are four common HSA mistakes to watch out for and ways to fix them. Read More |
| Consumer-Driven Health Care |
| Ouch. That ‘Free’ Annual Checkup Might Cost You. Here’s Why. The Affordable Care Act’s designers might have assumed that millions of Americans would no longer have to pay for certain types of preventive care, including doctor visits to screen for disease. But over the past several years, the medical industry has found ways to bill patients in gray zones of the law. Patients going in for preventive care, expecting that it will be fully covered by insurance, are being blindsided by bills, big and small. Read More |
| The Colonoscopies Were Free but the ‘Surgical Trays’ Came With $600 Price Tags Chantal Panozzo and her husband scheduled their first routine colonoscopies a few months apart. By law, preventive services — including routine colonoscopies — are available at zero cost to patients. So Panozzo said she expected their screenings would be fully covered. Their results came back normal, she said. Then the bills came. Read More |