Question

One of the key issues in the debate over health care reform is the tax treatment of employee health benefits. Traditionally, such employer paid insurance premiums have not been counted as part of an employee’s taxable income. In addition, since the IRS treats the premiums as a business expense, they work to reduce the firm’s corporate tax liability. Opponents of the status quo argue that if employees had to pay income taxes on the value of the benefits, and if firms could not automatically deduct the cost of the benefits from their taxable income, both employees and employers might shop more carefully for health coverage. If employers and employees pay greater attention to the cost of different plans, providers of both health insurance and health services would face grater incentives to keep costs down.

How would the hedonic wage model of employee benefits change if employees had to pay taxes on health care benefits?

How would the model change if employers could count only part of their health care expenses as a business expense?

How would the changes above affect the optimal combination of wages and employee benefits?

Answer 1

Employer-paid premiums for health insurance are exempt from federal income and payroll taxes. Additionally, the portion of premiums paid by employees is typically excluded from taxable income as well. The exclusion of premiums lowers most workers’ tax bills and thus reduces their after-tax cost of coverage. This tax subsidy partly explains why most American families have health insurance coverage through employers. Other factors play a role though, notably the economies of group coverage.

ESI EXCLUSION IS WORTH MORE TO TAXPAYERS IN HIGHER TAX BRACKETS :

Because the exclusion of premiums for employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) reduces taxable income, it is worth more to taxpayers in higher tax brackets than to those in lower brackets. Consider a worker in the 15 percent income-tax bracket who also faces a payroll tax of 15.3 percent (7.65 percent paid by the employer and 7.65 percent paid by the employee). If his employer-paid insurance premium is $1,000, his taxes are $281 less than they would be if the $1,000 was paid as taxable compensation. His after-tax cost of health insurance is thus $1,000 minus $281, or $719. In contrast, the after-tax cost of a $1,000 premium for a worker in the 25 percent income tax bracket is just $626 ($1,000 minus $374).[1] Savings on state and local taxes typically lower the after-tax cost of health insurance even more.

ESI EXCLUSION IS COSTLY:

The ESI exclusion cost the federal government an estimated $260 billion in income and payroll taxes in 2017 making it the single largest tax expenditure. Note, too, that the open-ended nature of the tax subsidy has likely increased health care costs by encouraging the purchase of more comprehensive health insurance policies with lower cost sharing or with less tightly managed care.

Replacing the ESI exclusion with a tax credit would equalize tax benefits across taxpayers in different tax brackets, as well as between those who get their insurance through their employers and those who obtain coverage from other sources. Making the credit refundable would extend that benefit to those whose tax liability falls below the value of the credit. And designing the credit so that it does not subsidize insurance on the margin (i.e., to be a fixed dollar amount as opposed to a percentage of the premium) could lower health care costs.

[1] These examples assume that workers bear the full burden of employer payroll taxes. Note that the effective marginal tax rates (28.1 percent for the worker in the 15 percent income-tax bracket and 37.4 percent for the worker in 25 percent income-tax bracket) are less than the sum of the income tax and payroll tax rates (30.3 percent and 40.3 percent, respectively) because those rates are applied to compensation after the employer’s share of payroll taxes has been deducted. Thus, for example, if the employer increases compensation by $1,000, cash wages only increase by $929 [calculated as $1,000 / (1+employer payroll tax rate)], because the employer would have to pay additional employer payroll taxes of $71. The lower-wage worker’s resulting combined income and payroll tax would be 30.3 percent of $929 or $281. The higher-wage worker’s resulting combined income and payroll tax would be 40.3 percent of $929 or $374.