Hsa Direct Deposit Form: Fill & Download for Free

I’ve never heard of a ‘W-4 Account’ - a W-4 is a Form expressing your desires for income tax withholding. It is one component of your Payroll Account which also includes your wage rates, bank information for direct deposit, insurance and retirement deductions and other voluntary elections like HSA and profit sharing or ESOP contributions.You should be asking questions of your HR representative, not the world wide web.

Given the continued evolution of healthcare insurance I wanted to provide an update to the responses initially posted to this thread in 2013.The short answer remains yes, Health Savings Account (“HSA”) plans can be beneficial to employees. However, and like most new things, HSAs require some education and experience before they begin to feel familiar.The good news is after the adjustment period many consumers find the benefits of an HSA a vast improvement over Flexible Savings Accounts (or “FSAs”). Conveniently, FSAs are paired with traditional health insurance plans (e.g. PPOs), meaning there is a large “installed” user base familiar with some of the basics of pre-tax payroll deductions for health care expenses that also apply to HSAs. Among the many benefits and advantages, HSAs combine the flexibility of FSAs with the long-term oriented, investment options of retirement accounts, like 401(k)s and IRAs.To appreciate this additional feature, as well as perhaps encourage you to make the most of your HSA, consider this: the costs of healthcare continue to rise at a rate greater than inflation, often 2-3 times more than inflation (those interested can compared the Milliman Medical Index to BLS CPI for an annual look, as one measure). At the same time, employee contributions to the cost of their overall health care expenses have grown at a rate greater than the actual growth in health care cost (see Kaiser Family Foundation 2016 Employer Health Benefits Survey, Exhibit D).What this means is the cost of health insurance continues to rise, regardless of form (e.g. PPO, HDHP, HMO, ACO). This is often hard to detect the full impact, as health care insurance plan premiums, deductibles, co-pays and even health provider network access, are all periodically adjusted to reflect the expanding bill of health care. Still, many now find that even traditional non-High Deductible Health Plans appear to have high deductibles of $1,000 or more - a trend likely to continue given the cost dynamics mentioned above - yet do not qualify for pairing with a Health Savings Account. [The IRS determines the health insurance plan conditions which allows taxpayers to open on HSA – for more see IRS Publication 969, Health Savings Accounts and other Tax-Favored Health Plans].For the employee in traditional health care insurance plans, then, more and more funds must be directed to the FSA to achieve the full tax benefits, while still being subject to a “use or lose” condition at year end. This is in addition to an overall increase in insurance premiums, which as mentioned above can be substantial from year to year.Enter the HDHP/HSA combination. While the insurance premium in HDHPs over savings over traditional PPO’s can often be $50-100/month or more (see KFF study referenced above), what the HDHP/HSA combination really offers is an ability to save for future health expenses. While you many not have significant out of pocket expenses in the first year, HSA funds can “pre-fund” expenses you may have in later years.Funds deposited in an HSA never expire.By now most of us are used to seeing advertisements at the end of the year encouraging us to spend our FSA money before we forfeit the funds back to our employer (see Sect 125 Cafeteria plans for more details). HSAs are not subject to this limitation, though you may still come across advertisers who want you to spend your HSA dollars with them.HSAs can even be withdrawn for non-health care related expenses.Unlike FSA disbursements, which must be authorized by the trustee holding the funds, HSA providers will reimburse you at your request for both healthcare and non-healthcare related expenses. Taxpayers are responsible for determining which expenses are qualified, unlike an FSA, though once taxpayers reach the age of 65 these funds are no longer subject to a 20% penalty. At that point taxpayers only pay ordinary income taxes, so similar to the tax treatment of an IRA or 401(k). This makes an HSA a combination of FSA and IRA, if you will, with tax-free treatment if used as the former and tax deferred treatment if used as the later. Unusual to find a free option in the US tax code.Regarding employers. For employers who must decide how employee compensation dollars are allocated – generally money spent towards health care costs decreases money for employee salaries and bonuses – HDHP/HSA combinations can be very attractive options. Recall employers still pay the overwhelming majority of the costs (see KFF study), despite the trend towards increasing health care costs being absorbed by employees. Therefore the more more efficient employers can spend funds purchasing health insurance on behalf of their employees, the more money is left to direct elsewhere, including other compensation components, like employe salaries.Finally, regarding employer contributions into employee Health Savings Accounts, there is no strict guideline. Generally speaking employers consider “seeding” the HSA account on initial conversion, as we did at HelloWallet (now Morningstar) where I was CFO. We also made matching contributions to employee HSA payroll deductions, similar to the way many companies match 401(k) contributions. However, and as mentioned above, companies must balance matching cash contributions with other compensation priorities.Looking forward, much the way many employers match 401(k) and other qualified retirement plan contributions, I suspect over time employers will tend to see HSA contributions as a way to encourage their employees to act in their own best interest. The HSA can be a much more flexible and tax efficient savings account, both short and long term, but this will take time for the market, and our individual behavior, to adjust.Finally, a word about us. We built an app, HSA Coach, to educate users on Health Savings Accounts, as well as assist them with keeping track of contributions and withdrawals, as well as record keeping. The above may sound daunting, particularly as you move from employer to employer or even as your employer switches HSA providers, which happens often. We have some financial planning calculators to help plan contributions, and even compare to other employer plans, like a 401(k) [I’m a CFP® and we couldn’t help ourselves…]. We back up to Dropbox should you use that cloud service as a document storage solution.More at HSA Coach.

Getting all of the people who believe that one more regulation or the right top man this time will allow them to finally solve the socialist calculation problem and deliver a utopian system in which all parties needs are met perfectly out of the way.Yes, that means both those on the left who scream for single payer (even thought they really have no clue what it means and do not realize that only 3 advanced countries use any form of single payer) and those on the right who think our system is working just fine and only needs a few tweaks from Washington.You want to give affordable health care to everyone?I can do that for you tomorrow.Employer provided health insurance is to be taxed as normal income at the fair market value of that insurance. It is income, not some special benefit. The purpose of this however is not to raise extra revenue but to remove the privileged situation that employer provided insurance occupies and to encourage people to leave the employer plans for other group plans.Any organization that can demonstrate a minimal level of fiscal soundness is allowed to sponsor a Health Insurance plan. This could be a church, the Elks club, your Home Owners Association, or even the town. This plans have very broad leeway to make eligibility rules and define what coverage they do and do not offer. Rates will be determined through traditional risk pooling actuarial tables based on actual and likely enrollment. Note: employers are still allowed to offer insurance plans to their employees and even pick up part or all of the tab for that insurance if they want but anything paid out by the employer will be taxed as normal income.People can purchase an Insurance plan sponsored by anyone anywhere that they can meet the eligibility requirements for. The state the plan is sued in is irrelevant.Insurance is not allowed to be directly billed. Yea I know consumers prefer it this way but Tough, the indirect payment interferes with with price signals. You pay and get reimbursed so that you are always aware what the health care costs. You pay from your HSA and insurance reimburses that.Every American over the age of 18 gets a Health Savings Account. These work very much like the ones they have today except for a few changes. They have to have one whether they use it or not (they can sign up with any provider of HSA services they want, they just need to provide an account number in good standing on their tax forms. They can migrate from one provider to another at any time much like transferring a 401k. They can only be used for medical care and certain health related services with a letter of medical necessity. and the final most important one, you are free to donate money from your HSA to another persons without penalty.All money the Federal Government currently spends on health care are put into a pool, 20% of that pool goes into a program that is a VA like health system but it ONLY covers a very limited set of very expensive diseases/conditions/etc. (expensive cancers, cystic fibrosis, MDA, extreme geriatric care, etc.) the remaining 80% is directly deposited into HSA’s based on a formula that take into account the current funds in the HSA, the number of dependents the person has, and income level of the person. This would average out to something like $4000 per person and could be as high as $10,000 per person per year. States would be encouraged to do the same with their own health care spendingThat pool of health care funds would be statutorily defined to increase at a rate equal to the 5 year running average of inflation + population change.In addition to the option of directly paying for care out of pocket from their HSA you can if you so choose use money from the HSA to pay for an insurance plan.Employers who offer health benefits to their employees and pay any portion of the premiums must give the employee the option of receiving that amount as increased pay or the health insurance benefit. They cannot require the employee take the companies health care.Medical providers must be able to provide a precise price quote for all services on demand and may not deviate from those rate sheets for non emergency care. for emergency care however they may negotiate a lower payment amount if they wish (it may be preferable to get something with no legal fight than trying to sue someone and possibly facing a jury sympathetic to victim of some horrible accident) .When you die, any funds remaining in your HSA up to your lifetime Government HSA contributions are returned to the Federal government, the remainder are returned to your estate.Now you have reintroduced price signals back into health care. People will comparison shop when able, when not they still have the ability to negotiate a price they can afford for those services. People are now responsible for managing their own health care and taking a more active role in deciding exactly what services they are willing to pay for and it is made clear the providers work for the patients and not some distant bureaucracy that dictates they see one patient every 15 minutes or some such nonsense. People who come down with very expensive diseases are covered as are the extremely elderly and for people who suffer very expensive accidents there is even a mechanism for them to solicit donations from friends and family (via their own extra HSA savings) .