Tax Reform Bill Includes Repeal of Individual Mandate

On Dec. 20th, 2017, Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which makes significant changes to individual and corporate provisions of the U.S. tax code, including a reduction in the corporate tax rate to 21%, down from 35%, beginning in 2018. The bill includes permanent effective repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) individual mandate, requiring individuals to purchase and maintain health coverage, by zeroing out the penalty beginning in 2019. For 2018, individuals are still required to maintain coverage or pay the penalty when they file their 2018 federal income tax return which will remain at 2.5% of your total household income.

The bill was negotiated by a conference committee comprised of representatives from both the Senate and House after each chamber passed their versions of tax reform. The final bill was passed 51-48 by the Senate and 224-201 by the House with the President executing the final provision into law.

The bill also changes how certain tax thresholds will be indexed for inflation. Affected provisions, including the ACA “Cadillac” Tax (scheduled to take effect in 2020), will now be indexed to the Chained Consumer Price Index (CPI) instead of the regular CPI (the previous metric). That change makes it likely that more employer-sponsored plans would trigger the Cadillac tax sooner.