Business Owners with as few as 1 Employee could face a $100-per-day Penalty Under Obamacare beginning October 1

Small business owners who thought they were off the hook for ObamaCare regulations until 2015 may be in for an expensive wake-up call next month. 

Beginning Oct. 1, any business with at least one employee and $500,000 in annual revenue must notify all employees by letter about the Affordable Care Act’s health-care exchanges, or face up to a $100-per-day fine. The requirement applies to any business regulated under the Fair Labor Standards Act, regardless of size. Going forward, letters are to be distributed to any new hires within 14 days of their starting date, according to the Department of Labor.

Earlier this summer, the employer mandate, which states that every business with at least 50 or more full-time employees must offer workers acceptable coverage or face a $2,000 penalty per-worker, per-year, was pushed back until 2015. But the Oct. 1 employee-notification deadline stands. Keith McMurdy, partner at FOX Rothschild LLP, says the $100 per-day fine has been “unfortunately overlooked” by many small businesses, and the dollar amount on the penalty comes from the general per-day penalty under the ACA. 

“The PPACA has a general $100-a-day penalty for non-compliance. Since this requirement is in the FLSA there are also penalties there. So the general consensus is that some penalty applies and probably the general provision,” McMurdy tells FOXBusiness.com.

Joeseph Dutra, president and CEO of Kimmie Candy Co., has 30 employees and brings in more than $500,000 in revenue annually, which means he has to notify workers of the exchanges by Oct. 1. He had no idea. 

“My understanding is that a lot of businesses don’t know what the requirements are under the law,” Dutra says. “So many businesses don’t have a designated HR department.”

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