PHOTO: Adrian C. Garcia
CHICAGO, IL – Through the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration has left millions of undocumented workers more exposed and thus more vulnerable to deportation by the Trump administration.
A new part of the Affordable Care Act that just went into effect in 2016 requires some employers to provide the names and Social Security numbers of each employee who was offered health coverage on Form 1095-C to the Internal Revenue Service. And, as an unintended consequence, some employers are discovering that they may not have valid Social Security numbers for all of their employees.
This is because the IRS sent letters to the employers stating that the 1095-C form was accepted with errors and the IRS is instructing the companies to notify affected employees that there may be errors in the information the IRS provided to the company.
This is not the same as the Social Security no-match letters that the Social Security Administration sent to employers in the past. This new phenomenon is a direct result of the implementation of Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Now that the IRS is checking the validity of the Social Security number reported on the 1095-C forms, employers will face an obligation to take affirmative steps to obtain valid Social Security numbers from affected employees.
The IRS requires that employers correct the ACA reporting forms as soon as possible. Generally, the IRS will issue monetary penalties for late or incorrect forms of up to $250 per form with total penalties capped at $1.5 million. But if the employers can show they are making a good-faith effort with their employees to correct the mistakes, the employers may avoid the penalties.
Companies are responding differently to the letter they are receiving from the IRS. In Chicago, some companies have requested that their employees bring corrected information and if they don’t, they risk termination.
Some employers proceeded to fire these employees when the IRS letter was received. Yet other companies in Chicago realized that if they just asked affected employees to bring corrected information, they would be complying with the IRS and may not risk being fined.
Under the Obama administration, the different government agencies have a policy of not sharing data on Americans, whether citizens or non-citizens. But under the Trump administration, which has promised to deport undocumented workers, the IRS now has the names and addresses of millions of immigrants whose Social Security Numbers don’t match their names and it is certainly possible that the IRS will turn over this data to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, making the deportation of these immigrants that much easier for the Trump administration!
All decent, hard-working Americans must fight to stop this from happening.
