The Internal Revenue Service issued guidance Tuesday to make temporary changes to section 125 cafeteria plans, with the goal of providing tax relief and flexibility in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The IRS is extending the claims period for health care flexible spending arrangements and dependent care assistance programs and enabling taxpayers to make mid-year changes to their accounts.
The guidance released Tuesday by the IRS deals with the unanticipated changes in expenses faced by many taxpayers as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The IRS is now allowing its previously provided temporary relief for high deductible health plans to be applied retroactively to Jan. 1, 2020, and also increases for inflation the $500 permitted carryover amount for health FSAs to $550.
Yuval Brisker is the CEO and co-founder of Alviere, an embedded finance company. Prior to Alviere, he co-founded TOA Technologies, a SaaS solutions firm that was acquired by Oracle in 2014. Before founding TOA, Yuval spent years growing and managing technology ventures.
Damith brings deep technical and executive experience to his role as Loadsure CTO, where he's responsible for strategic technology planning, innovation, and, ultimately, delivery of Loadsure's insurtech platform. In addition, Damith provides a 360-degree view of available technology capabilities, informing strategically sound business decisions by the leadership team.
Prior to joining Loadsure, Damith served as 30dB CTO. There, he architected and built a highly scalable social sentiment engine that delivered real-time insight into both public opinion and what drives it.
It is within the multinational conglomerate, IAC Applications, that Damith grew from senior engineer to technology executive. His responsibilities spanned technology strategy and architecture; business plan development; management; reorganization; and funding of teams across IAC business units, the likes of Pronto, Mindspark, and Ask.com.
As IAC Applications' Vice President of Data, Damith took on broad responsibility for everything from shared data and information strategy to the website, search engine, and its underlying technologies.
Michael Stuart is a behavioral healthcare leader with more than 30 years' diverse experience, ranging from executive management in large behavioral healthcare systems to teaching daily living skills to autistic children. Mike has worked with tens of thousands of people, with a focus on actionable, tangible steps to integrate health and wellness into everyday life. He specializes in teaching the importance of developing and utilizing a strong mindset to address and overcome health and wellness challenges, including addiction and mental well-being. As the Executive Director at AllOne Health EAP, he leads the team in delivering EAP and whole health benefits to organizations, employees and their family members.
In Notice 2020-29, the IRS is offering extra flexibility to taxpayers by:
- extending the claims periods for taxpayers to apply unused amounts remaining in a health FSA or dependent care assistance program for expenses incurred for those same qualified benefits through Dec. 31, 2020;
- expanding the ability of taxpayers to make mid-year elections for health coverage, health FSAs and dependent care assistance programs, allowing them to respond to changes in needs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; and
- applying earlier relief for high-deductible health plans to cover expenses related to COVID-19, and a temporary exemption for telehealth services retroactively to Jan. 1, 2020.
In conjunction with that notice, the IRS also issued Notice 2020-33, in response to the Trump administration’s Executive Order 13877, which directs the Treasury secretary to “issue guidance to increase the amount of funds that can carry over without penalty at the end of the year for flexible spending arrangements.” The notice ups the limit for unused health FSA carryover amounts from $500, to a maximum of $550, adjusted each year for inflation.
