Comments on: The $187,500 Government Hit on My Business

By: Max Lybbert

Max Lybbert — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:16:21 +0000

Maybe getting canned will remind your former workers that the AARP isn’t necessarily looking out for them. Unfortunately, it may give the wrong signal to your new (younger, hipper, and liberal) workers.

By: spiro

spiro — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:35:39 +0000

Tom, by “Big Business” I was referring to large corporations employing 500+ people, most of which already have employee health plan deals worked out with insurance companies.

The locally-owned cheese factory/restaurant/credit union/janitorial service etc, will employee 25-50 people, still be considered a small business, yet not have it in their margin to provide 60% health care costs for their employees.

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:16:12 +0000

You could break your company into 20 or so small companies, each employing fewer than 25 people.

By: Nate

Nate — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:31:58 +0000

You should be ok. If all your part timers have Medicare and you require they contribute 40% to the cost of insurance I would assume all of them would waive your coverage and just keep Medicare. As long as they have other coverage you should not be penalized. As long as you don’t offer them an incentive to waive your legal. The one benefit of these clowns writing the laws having no idea what they are doing is they leave gaping holes, i.e. first pass at mental health parity.

By: Dr. T

Dr. T — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:37:24 +0000

Federal politicians have tossed out a number of funding proposals, so this idiotic Kennedy proposal (based on the disastrous Massachusetts experience) may not be the one that gets chosen. They’re still trial-ballooning the tax surcharge plan, and they still haven’t decided about removing the tax-deductibility of health insurance (that would raise tax revenues to help offset the costs of the feds plan). Of course, asking people who enroll in ObamaCare Insurance to pay the full costs is not on the table.

Stephen Macklin said: “There must be some sort of out in the bill for seasonal workers. This would wreak absolute havoc in the farming industry.”

Congress only cares about agribusinesses, not smaller farmers. Agribusinesses get huge federal subsidies plus price supports, and I’m sure they’ll use this as justification for larger subsidies. As usual, the smaller farmers will be shit out of luck. I expect a lot more “off the books” hiring.

By: Kevin D

Kevin D — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:48:08 +0000

I have a similar business (though not seasonal) that employs mostly retired workers. I have alot of part-timers who do not want to work full-time and want to take a week off whenever they want yet like to earn a little extra money. They are not interested in any additional insurance. I’ve been somewhat afraid of seeing my business expand to the point where I’d would be under FMLA and other regulations. It’s a shame that government punishes you for expanding your business. Just because you have over 25 or 50 employees doesn’t mean your profits are greater than if you had 5 employees. Every time government thinks it’s fixing a problem by passing one of these laws it creates an unintended consequence that ends up hurting the person they originally intended to help. I’ve considered that I may be able to increase prices knowing it will reduce the amount of business and number of employees needed. Whether profits could keep stable is questionable.

I recently read a very good book that reminds me of what is happening to our country under this administration. It is FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression by Jim Powell. FDR was constantly trying to tweak the economy and help the little guy and in the end it was the little guy that got hurt. A very good read.

By: SunSword

SunSword — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:46:38 +0000

I concur with the independent contractor model. Pay them as independents. They file 1099’s. They pay 100% of their SSN (both sides) but if most are part timers they will get it all back anyway. They pay their taxes quarterly, and get it all back every yearly filing (assuming they are part timers and this is all they do).

To make this even cleaner — set up one single corporation, which handles all your new 1099 contractors. Your company makes bi-weekly payments — a single check each two weeks — to the contracting company. That corporation pays them all and handles payroll. Transfer your payroll processor to that company. That corporation submits the W2 information for each contractor at the end of each year to the government.

Companies that hire independent contractors don’t have to pay their SSN – no social security costs to the company. No health care required at all. They are simply a pass through.

It is completely legal and it is how many people work in the IT industry.

By: Russ R.

Russ R. — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:53:43 +0000

Change from an employee model to a partnership model where partners earn a portion of profits.

Or have them work as independent contracters collecting a percent of revenue rather than a salary or wage.

By: tomw

tomw — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 14:50:39 +0000

Spiro: Here is a case where a ‘big business’, i.e., greater than 25 employees is NOT being helped as you so state. How is this good for big business in this case? Costs go up or employee head count will go down, or another option to ‘reduce’ countable heads will be taken. In other words, just more red tape.

What will happen is that every business affected will pay the ‘fine’ rather than the cost of health coverage. It’s cheaper. No one will have their old health coverage. No one can buy yearly coverage for $750, so they will all cancel their coverage and use the subsidized government plan.
Kennedy and crew are lying as usual.
tom

By: joshv

joshv — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:04:07 +0000

Incorporate everywhere. Each campground gets a separate corporation. Keep each corp under 25 employees. What’s that – 20 to 30 corporations? It’d be a pain, but accounting/legal costs for a small corp run under $1000/year. Hire a part time person to keep track of it all and keep up on state filings and such. All told it might cost $50k or more extra a year – much less than the healthcare costs.