he American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“Act”) modified some separating employees’ COBRA rights by offering a 65% subsidy to be applied to required COBRA premiums and an additional enrollment period during which to elect COBRA coverage for some “assistance eligible individuals.” As a follow-up to that legislation, the Department of Labor (DOL) has announced that model forms are now available to help plans and employers comply with these new rules.  The notices are located on the DOL website at: http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/COBRAmodelnotice.html.
In addition, employers should be aware that they should use the revised IRS Form 941, Employers Quarterly Federal Tax Return, to report the payment of these COBRA premium assistance payments.  This can be found at: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f941.pdf.

If you have any questions regarding this Legal Alert, please contact Michael J. Bogdan (mbogdan@kwgd.com) in the Krugliak, Wilkins, Griffiths & Dougherty Employee Benefits Section at 330-497-0700.

NOTE: This general summary of the law should not be used to solve individual problems since slight changes in the fact situation may require a material variance in the applicable legal advice.