On February 2, The Seattle Metro Chamber hosted a webinar – Chamber Briefing: Long Term Care Act Delayed – Next Steps for Employers.
Washington state’s long-term care program was supposed to start Jan. 1, 2022. On Jan. 27, Gov. Jay Inslee signed two bills to delay the start of the program by 18 months and to provide additional exemptions from the program.
You can watch the 30-minute webinar here.
The panel of experts:
| Brad Boswell Principal Boswell Consulting |
Lewis Horowitz Shareholder Lane Powell |
A summary of what our experts shared
Over the next 18 months, the Long-Term Care Task Force will be studying the financial analysis and collect public comments and will bring back a series of recommendations for the legislature.
In the meantime, the employer community is not going to be collecting or remitting the tax to the state.
Litigation or a ballot measure to repeal the long-term care program are two possibilities, Boswell said.
Three things to do:
- Employers – If you collected the tax in January 2022, you must return the money to employees within 120 days – but do it ASAP.
- Employees – If you took out your own personal long-term care policy, the recommendation is to keep it. The general exemption process hasn’t changed, so if the program isn’t repealed, you may need to show proof the policy is in place in the near future.
- Don’t worry about it – This program is going to see a lot of changes between now and enactment – including possibly repeal.
Employees want a policy but don’t get one. It is possible to still get a policy, but that doesn’t mean that employees will be exempted from the long-term care program because the original, general exemption deadline has passed, and the new legislation did not impact that deadline.
Additional exemptions signed into law in January:
- Spouses and domestic partners of active-duty personnel
- Those who are already on 70% disability on an armed services-related injury
- Those who live out of state
- Those who commute to Washington to work and those with non-immigrant visas
Horowitz wrote an additional article on this topic. Read it here.
