02 March 2020 Supreme Court will hear ACA case in the October term The U.S. Supreme Court has placed the latest case challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act on its docket for the October term. On January 21, 2020, the Supreme Court denied motions to expedite its decision on whether to hear the case (see Tax Alert 2020-0157). The petition for certiorari asked the Supreme Court to decide whether reducing the individual mandate to zero made that provision unconstitutional, and if so, whether that provision was severable from the rest of the ACA. In December 2018, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the individual mandate in the ACA is unconstitutional because it is no longer a tax and no other provision justifies the exercise of congressional power (Texas v. United States, No. 19-10011 (5th Cir. Dec. 18, 2019). The Fifth Circuit remanded the question of whether the individual mandate was severable from the ACA back to the district court (for more details, see Tax Alert 2019-2280). The fact that this will be on the Supreme Court's docket for the fall means that the ACA will likely remain a major issue in the 2020 elections. With a ruling not likely to be issued until after the election or inauguration in January 2021, the status quo will remain throughout the 2020 calendar year, meaning that there will be ongoing IRS reporting obligations for employers and health coverage issuers.
Document ID: 2020-0476 | |||||||
