A key provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the excise tax is now viewed by many legislators on both sides of the aisle as likely to lower the value of employees’ benefits packages and result in greater costs for consumers when it takes effect in 2018. 

The tax was created to help pay for expanding coverage to the uninsured under the ACA and to reduce health care usage and costs. Under the ACA, beginning in 2018, both fully insured and self-funded employer health plans will be assessed a non-refundable 40 percent excise tax on the dollar amount of any employee premiums that exceed annual limits of $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for family coverage. Read more at www.thepowerofa.org.