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December 22, 2003 at 07:00 PM
NU Online News Service, Dec. 22, 2003, 6:02 p.m. EST – The Internal Revenue Service is asking tax advisors, benefits experts and others to help it come up with a clear, accurate explanation of the health savings account section of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003.[@@]
Elizabeth Purcell and Shoshanna Tanner, IRS officials, have published a preliminary version of IRS Notice 2004-2, a notice that will give taxpayers and their advisors basic guidance on how to make use of the HSA provision in the real world.
Purcell and Tanner are asking for comments on the basic guidance, and they also are asking for comments about other, more complicated HSA issues that the IRS might address in the future.
The officials are asking what they should write about the relationship between HSAs, flexible spending accounts and health reimbursement arrangements.
Other topics of interest include “the application of the nondiscrimination rules in [Internal Revenue Code] Section 125 to HSAs offered under a cafeteria plan” and “the corrective procedures in instances where employer contributions exceed the statutory contribution limits,” the officials write.
