The vast majority of employers fall below the ALE size threshold and therefore are not subject to the employer shared responsibility provisions. In general, employers employing at least a certain threshold number of employees (generally 50 full-time employees including full-time equivalent employees, which means a combination of part-time employees that count as one or more full-time employees) are ALEs. Whether an employer is an ALE and is therefore subject to the employer shared responsibility provisions depends on the size of its workforce. Under these provisions, certain employers (called applicable large employers or ALEs) must either offer health coverage that is “affordable” and that provides “minimum value” to their full-time employees (and offer coverage to the full-time employees’ dependents), or potentially make an employer shared responsibility payment to the IRS, if at least one of their full-time employees receives a premium tax credit for purchasing individual coverage on a Health Insurance Marketplace (Marketplace), also called the Exchange.
The employer shared responsibility provisions were added under section 4980H of the Internal Revenue Code by the Affordable Care Act.