WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursdayissued proposed rules aimed at easing the requirements forcompanies and insurers when they report employees' health coverageinformation to comply with President Barack Obama'ssignature healthcare law.

The proposed regulations are a key element of the employermandate portion of the law. Implementation of the rules had beendelayed while the Treasury Department attempted to simplify them toaddress concerns of employers.

"We will continue to consider ways, consistent with the law, tosimply the new information reporting process," said Mark Mazur,assistant treasury secretary for tax policy.

The law, widely known as Obamacare, requires employers with 50or more workers to offer their full-time employees a minimum levelof health insurance coverage or be subject to a fee.

If companies do not offer coverage and have at least onefull-time worker receiving government tax credits to buy insurance,employers are assessed a fee of $2,000 per full-time employee,excluding the first 30 workers.

The administration caused a stir in July when it unexpectedlydelayed the effective date for the reporting and for the employermandate itself to 2015 from 2014.

Retailers in particular had complained about the law's detailedreporting requirements. A trade group commended the Obamaadministration for taking action to lighten the burden ofthe law. But the group's lobbyist said the administration did notgo far enough.

"One thing retailers and other employers hate more than anythingelse is sending the same information to different agencies,"said Neil Trautwein with the National RetailFederation, which represents Wal-Mart, Macy's Inc. andothers.

The group wants the Internal RevenueService to work with the Health and HumanServices Administration to simplify the rules further.

Although the employer mandate has been delayed, the separaterequirement that all individuals carry health insurance or pay afee, goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2014.

Thursday's proposal would, among other things, eliminate theneed for employers to determine whether particular employees arefull-time where adequate coverage is offered to all "potentiallyfull-time employees." It also would let employers report specificcosts for health plans only if the cost is above a certainthreshold dollar amount.

The proposed rules would also allow, in certain instances, thereporting of healthcare information on W-2 tax forms that employersissue to workers, rather than a separate statement.

When the government delayed the effective dates of the mandateand reporting, they requested that companies voluntarily reportstarting in 2014.

Cathy Livingston, who worked on the health care rules as an IRSattorney, said it is likely that "a very limited number of entitieswould voluntarily choose to report."

"Employers and insurers will likely take a pass," saidLivingston, now in private practice at Jones Day.