Employer Reporting Improvement Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of Nebraska. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of our bill, the Employer Reporting Improvement Act. As was mentioned, the bill was adapted from legislation that my colleague, Mr. Thompson, and I have been working on for years, the Commonsense Reporting Act.

The Employer Reporting Improvement Act is a strong step toward cleaning up the complicated process employers use to report data required by the IRS and providing employers relief.

This data is used to determine if an employee's health coverage is considered affordable. Unfortunately, an inadvertent mistake or omission in reporting this data can result in a financial penalty for the employer long after the original submission. The potential financial penalty can put a serious strain on small businesses who are already struggling with workforce shortages and persistently high inflation.

While the vast majority of these mistakes are ultimately corrected without a financial penalty being enforced, employers are still forced to navigate a complicated maze of bureaucracy to clear up these unintentional mistakes.

The Employer Reporting Improvement Act makes simple, yet effective changes, including codifying actions previously taken to create more safeguards and flexibilities, improving the reporting process, and making it less likely employers are faced with resolving reporting problems several years after the fact.

In fact, one of the most important pieces of the bill is the creation of a reasonable statute of limitations, 6 years, for penalties resulting from reporting errors.

As we continue our work to improve employer reporting requirements, I hope we can work with the Treasury Department to find a path forward on prospective reporting, as Mr. Thompson also elaborated on.

I am glad to support the Employer Reporting Improvement Act. I encourage my colleagues to do the same.

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