Some provisions that benefited both employers and employees will be ending at year’s end. These include:
- CARES’ safe harbor provision. This allowed high-deductible health plans to cover telehealth and other remote care services.
- CARES’ flexibility for Flexible Spending Accounts. This allowed workers to change their elections any time for pretty much any reason.
- ARPA’s higher dependent care contributions. The American Rescue Plan Act upped the maximum dollar amount employees could set aside for dependent care from $5000 to 10,500.
- ARPA’s six-month COBRA subsidy. This enabled workers to get unemployment if they couldn’t risk exposing family members or other cohabitants to the virus by working.
- Consolidated Appropriations Act’s unlimited carryovers. This enabled employees to carry over contributions made to DCRAs and FSAs for 2020 and 2021 plan years. Moving forward, carryovers will be limited to 20% of the statutory contribution limit ($570).
