WalkingAssets

@Peter Gulia - you're probably right about taxpayers not having standing, but to @austin3515's last point, seems like the payroll companies may be able to show injury?

Thank you to each of you for your responses! Each was useful and I appreciate your time.

Here in California, just discovered yesterday that an employee has been misrepresenting that his domestic partner was his spouse on his health insurance enrollment forms for the last four years. Found out because he just told me he was about to get married later this month! I don't believe it was malicious, he's just really clueless about this stuff. Anyway, I don't believe she is a registered domestic partner (that would be uncharacteristic of him, although I could be wrong). Her premiums have been paid pre-tax through payroll deferrals and she also used his HRA last plan year. Regardless of whether or not she is registered, I know that the IRS does not generally allow pre-tax premium deferrals and HRA participation for domestic partners. Any advice on what to do now? Go back and try to make four years of corrections or just move forward since they are about to get married in 3 weeks? And yes, going forward, we'll ask for marital status verification... Thanks in advance!

@JSR_Kris On the other hand, B-2 visitor visas are meant to be temporary and relatively short. If you overstay a visitor visa and are caught, you will likely be barred from re-entering the U.S. for years. And given your circumstances, the USCIS might not be willing to grant you a B-2. If you think a layoff is imminent, then consider that an H-1b visa is fairly easy to transfer to another company while you are still employed by your current one. You might want to start looking for a new employer now. In any case, I highly recommend you speak with an immigration lawyer to discuss your options. Things are very tricky at the USCIS right now and it may take some time for that agency to change. If you are laid off, staying in the country legally may be more problematic than the COBRA issue.

Thanks for the advice, and yes, it won't happen again!

Hello, Our group plan carrier messed up and failed to enroll an employee back in April when we submitted her application. However, because we didn't know that until September, she has been enrolled on our group HRA since April. So, we were/are out of compliance for the five months she was not covered by our group health plan. The carrier has since enrolled her onto our health plan as of 9/1, but our broker doesn't think they will consent to back-enrolling to April. If they don't, what do you think we should do? Fortunately, she didn't have any medical claims until September, but she did use her HRA for some dental/vision charges prior to September. We would like to make the employee whole, since it wasn't her fault, and ideally get back into compliance. Should we: Report her HRA employer contributions as taxable for those five months she was not covered and give her a bonus to cover the taxes; Reset her HRA active status date to 9/1 and give her a (taxable) bonus to cover the HRA contributions for those five months; Not even bother asking the carrier to back-enroll her to April and just ignore the fact she was not covered by our group plan for five months (what are the risks here?); Or something else? Of course, if the carrier won't back-enroll her to April, we will also reimburse her premium payroll deductions. Thanks for any advice!

We have an employee whose last day of work occurred mid-September. He was participating in both our group health plan and our HRA. He remains covered by the health plan through the end of the month. The question is if he is also covered by our HRA during that time? In our plan adoption agmt, we have one clause that states that "an Employee is eligible to participate in the Plan under the same terms and conditions as under the Company benefit plan" - and our group health plan is then specified as the "Company benefit plan". However, later in the agmt, we have another clause that specifies "Permit Eligible Employees to participate in the Plan after Termination" and the "No" box is checked. So our TPA is saying that the ex-employee's access to his HRA ends on his last day of work (or technically, the next day). But that seems to conflict with the first clause and in addition, it seems, shall we say, asymmetrical to allow an ex-employee to continue to accrue expenses under the health plan, while denying him access to the HRA at the same time. I am not sure which clause should take precedence or whether it is up to us, as the plan administrators, to override our TPA's interpretation if we so wish. Or should we just check with an ERISA lawyer... Thanks in advance!