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Compensation & Benefits

In the Payroll Mailbag: December ’19

11/14/2019
Reporting health benefits on Form W-2 … Scavenger hunt prizes: Taxable or not?

Federal contract workers get a 20¢ raise in 2020

11/14/2019
Beginning Jan. 1, 2020, the minimum hourly wage for nonexempts who work on or in connection with new federal contracts or replacements for expiring contracts increases 20¢, to $10.80 an hour.

Fix it fast: Handling 27 biweekly payrolls in 2020

11/14/2019
Employees paid biweekly are paid 26 times a year. Except when they’re not. And they’re not every 11 or 12 years, when there are 27 biweekly pay periods. Employees paid weekly experience an extra pay period every five or six years. The 27th/53rd pay period phenomenon is real and can cause havoc if you’re not prepared.

Withholding allowances are down, but not out, for 2020

11/14/2019
The good news, such as it is, is that the IRS can’t completely ditch withholding allowances, even though it’s dropped the word Allowance from the W-4, officially renaming it Employee’s Withholding Certificate. Here are our estimates of the 2020 withholding allowances.

Employers seek new health care cost-control strategies

11/12/2019
Curbing the cost of health care and increasing its affordability remain the top priorities for almost all employers over the next three years, according to the 24th annual Best Practices in Health Care Employer Survey by Willis Towers Watson.

Health benefit spending follows the 20/80 rule

11/12/2019
A new study from the Employee Benefit Research Institute finds that a small minority of employees account for a huge majority of health insurance plan spending.

Higher health premiums mean less spent elsewhere

11/12/2019
More than 80% of adults told pollsters they would have to cut back on other spending when health care costs increase.

Yes, same employee can file several EPA suits

11/07/2019
Can an employee keep coming back to court with a new comparator? The answer appears to be a qualified “yes” as long as the new co-worker comparator arrived on the scene after the earlier lawsuit began.

IRS releases 401(k) COLA, other 2020 benefits amounts

11/07/2019
The amount employees can contribution into their 401(k) or 403(b) accounts increases by $500, to $19,500 for 2020, the IRS announced.

Rule would allow bonuses for fluctuating workweek employees

11/05/2019
The proposed rule would revise the regulation for computing overtime compensation for salaried, non-exempt employees who work hours that vary each week (i.e., a fluctuating workweek) under the Fair Labor Standards Act.