Open Enrollment starts next week. Are you ready? To help you prepare, Vanderbilt’s HR team is sharing the top 10 things you need to know.
Vanderbilt employees are eligible to fund two different types of flexible spending accounts (FSAs). FSAs are funded with your pretax dollars and can be used to pay for out-of-pocket health-related or dependent day care expenses.
Today’s article focuses on dependent day care flexible spending accounts. These can be used to pay for day care services for eligible dependents so that you and your spouse, if you are married, can continue to work and know that your dependents are being cared for. You can contribute up to $5,000 per year per household to a dependent day care FSA. Enter the dollar amount you want to put in the dependent day care FSA when you are enrolling in My VU Benefits. The system will automatically calculate and show how much money will be taken out of each paycheck.
Simply save your receipts and submit a claim to be reimbursed from your dependent day care FSA. Please remember that the dependent day care FSA is not for medical expenses for your dependents. You can use the health care FSA for your dependents’ medical expenses.
FSAs save you money! Because your income is going into your FSA account pretax, you save money by not paying income tax on that amount. FSA funds have to be used by March 15, 2017, or they’ll be lost, so plan carefully. And remember, you must re-enroll every year.
Open Enrollment begins at 8 a.m. Oct. 14 and ends at 11:59 p.m. Oct. 30. Elections are effective Jan. 1–Dec. 31, 2016, unless you have a qualifying event such as marriage, divorce or the birth of a child.
Visit hr.vanderbilt.edu/oe for additional information.