STARS Act Reduces Red Tape For Small Businesses

As I travel around Northeast Ohio, I continue to hear that small businesses are struggling to comply with the president’s health care law. That challenge is even greater for small, seasonal employers. 

The president’s health care law requires that employers with 50 or more full-time employees, or full-time equivalents, offer health care coverage or pay a fine. Largely designed with traditional jobs in mind, the health care law’s employer provisions fail to account for the exceptional circumstances of employers with highly seasonal workforces. Though the Treasury Department attempted to remedy these issues through regulation, the resulting rules are confusing and create unnecessary obstacles to compliance for small, seasonal employers. Based on current law and regulation, a seasonal worker is not necessarily a seasonal employee. 

David, who owns a small business in Ohio, is experiencing first-hand the overly burdensome provisions within the health care law. He has several full-time employees and hires an additional 40 or more seasonal employees during his busy spring season. Once he hires seasonal employees, he runs the risk of being required to perform complex calculations to determine if his business qualifies as a large or small business in order to meet compliance. He told me he can’t afford to hire an employee to handle human resources and sort through all of the paperwork.

As a former small business owner myself, I know how difficult it is to navigate our convoluted tax code and the amount of time and money that’s associated with compliance. That is why I introduced the Simplifying Technical Aspects Regarding Seasonality (STARS) Act. This legislation replaces the complex, arbitrary seasonal worker exemption with one definition of seasonal employment. This simplified standard is consistent across industries and will reduce the administrative burden for small businesses and help them to avoid hefty penalties under the president’s health care law.

The STARS Act is commonsense, bipartisan legislation that will bring much-needed clarity and flexibility to seasonal employers, allowing them to focus on growing their businesses and investing in their employees instead of devoting their limited resources to deciphering the president’s health care law. 

If you need any additional information or need help with a federal agency, please visit my website at renacci.house.gov or call my Washington office: (202) 225-3876, Wadsworth office: (330) 334-0040, or Parma office: (440) 882-6779. I also encourage you to subscribe to my Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages to get updates on my work in Washington and the 16th District.