Are You Eligible for Tax Credits under Health Reform?

ATLANTA — That’s a question more than a quarter of HME
providers participating in HomeCare’s 2010 Salary &
Benefits Survey couldn’t answer.

Other small business owners across the country are apparently in
the dark as well when it comes to all of the factors that determine
whether the business could receive a tax subsidy, and if so, how
much that might be.

In response, researchers at Georgia State University have
developed a small business tax credit calculator to help employers
crunch the numbers.

The “50-State Health Reform Calculator for Small Businesses”
will help determine whether small employers qualify for credits
under the new health reform law, and gives a rough idea of the
amount they could receive if they offer health benefits to
employees as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

Small businesses with fewer than 25 full-time employees making
less than $50,000 may be eligible for tax credits to help cover the
cost of insurance starting this year.

The calculator was developed by Georgia State’s Institute of
Health Administration in collaboration with the Georgia Health
Policy Center in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, the
Florida Public Health Institute and the Center for Mississippi
Health Policy.

The new calculator, which works for all states, can be accessed
at www.gsu.edu/ghpc.

(Tax credits are not the only thing about the new health reform
law that has HME providers flummoxed. Almost two-thirds — 63
percent — of those who took the HomeCare survey said
they either don’t understand at all or only “sort of” get how
health reform will affect their companies’ benefits program. Find
out more about providers’ current staffing, salary and benefits
plans in HomeCare’s next issue.)