Treasury Announces In Blog Post That Volunteer Firefighters Are Not Full-Time Employees For Purposes of Obamacare

January 13th, 2014

A new regulation, announced in a Treasury blog post,  exempts volunteer fire fighter companies from having to provide their employees who work more than 30 hours a week with health insurance under the ACA.

Here is the relevant portion of the post:

Treasury and the IRS issued proposed regulations on the employer shared responsibility provisions (Section 4980H of the Tax Code) in December 2012 and invited public comments.  Numerous comments were received from individuals and local fire and Emergency Medical Service departments that rely on volunteers.  The comments generally suggested that the employer responsibility rules should not count volunteer hours of nominally compensated volunteer firefighters and emergency medical personnel in determining full-time employees (or full-time equivalents).  In addition, Treasury heard from numerous members of Congress who expressed these same concerns on behalf of the volunteer emergency responders in their states and districts.

Treasury and the IRS carefully reviewed these comments and spoke with representatives of volunteer firefighters and volunteer emergency personnel to gain a better understanding of their specific situations.  Treasury and the IRS also reviewed various rules that apply to such volunteer personnel under other laws.  These include the statutory provisions that apply to bona fide volunteers under Section 457(e)(11) of the Tax Code (relating to deferred compensation plans of state and local governments and tax-exempt organizations) and rules governing the treatment of volunteers for purposes of the Federal wage and hour laws.  As a result of that review and analysis, the forthcoming final regulations relating to employer shared responsibility generally will not require volunteer hours of bona fide volunteer firefighters and volunteer emergency medical personnel at governmental or tax-exempt organizations to be counted when determining full-time employees (or full-time equivalents).

H/T RandomlyBob