Finished the ACA for 2017 Tax Year

I uploaded the ACA 1095C forms for 2017 tax year and am now done. There were some changes to the electronic transfer but not much. I’m only going to discuss briefly the changes because I will be updating my ACA pages that can be accessed from the home pages. I’d give you the link but I am also planning on changing the page name from 2016 to 2017 tax year and I haven't updated the pages yet.

But, as a quick note, the changes are:

1. Last year, the tag name for the monthly employee contributions were <MonthlyShareOfLowestCostMonthlyPremGrp>. This year it has changed to <MonthlyEmployeeRequiredContriGrp>. Why the change I have no idea.
2. The Checksum was changed from MD5 to SHA256. The SHA256 is believed to be more secure.
3. And a minor note but still important, I don’t think you can test your files in the AATS system anymore. I tried to use the testing system to flush out any changes that I did not catch through the XML Notepad validator, but I was unable to get past the Manifest header error where the “TestFileCd” did not match the “FormTypeCd”. After calling in to the help desk, we learned that we were set up for production system since we passed the last two years. It didn’t make sense because we were supposed to be able to test in case we come up against new situations but I guess that it now not an option.

That’s it for now. Over the weekend I will be updating those ACA pages and uploading some files including the changes.