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Compensation & Benefits

As requests for leave surge, HR is pressured to respond

04/17/2024
Since the pandemic, employees increasingly expect access to generous leave benefits, and employers are responding. AbsenceSoft’s 2024 Leave of Absence and Workplace Accommodations Forecast revealed these trends.

Two new steps free 401(k) plans from terminated employees

04/17/2024
Two provisions of SECURE 2.0 allow you to clean up your 401(k) plan administration for employees who terminate and leave their 401(k) assets behind. One raises the mandatory cash-out amount and the other allows you to turn over the entire cash-out process to a clearinghouse for employees you can’t locate.

In the Payroll Mailbag: May ’24

04/17/2024
Can we reimburse $10,000 for an employee’s master’s degree? … Are charges to the company credit card taxable?

Withholding window for NSO cashouts to get shorter

04/17/2024
Employees who cash out nonstatutory stock options are taxed on the difference between the stock’s price when the NSOs were granted and the price when the NSOs were exercised.

Warm thoughts and flip-flops: Plan for summer pay problems

04/17/2024
Before you start daydreaming about the former and wearing the latter, you need to consider how the onset of summer affects your payroll operations. Here are the key wage-and-hour rules you need to know.

New salary-level regs are coming soon

04/17/2024
For technical reasons, regulations raising the guaranteed salary you must pay employees to maintain their exempt status under the Fair Labor Standards Act need to be released by the middle of this month. You’ve been preparing for these regs for some time. This is your final check to ensure you treat employees who are reclassified as nonexempt properly.

Please don’t pet the frogs

04/17/2024
Employees who send their kids to day camp can reap a double bonus: Their kids will be entertained and their dependent care assistance plans can pick up some of the cost, up to the $5,000 annual limit.

Payroll pro & con: Switching third-party providers

04/17/2024
Outsourcing payroll operations to a third party is a common business strategy. Of course, you remain liable to the IRS and state tax agencies if your third-party payroll provider gets it wrong and there’s no indemnity clause in your service contract. You may also find yourself needing to switch providers. How do you evaluate a third party if you’re thinking of switching?

It’s a blizzard out there!

04/17/2024
Payroll managers whose companies take on summer hires know the feeling. Questions about W-4s and I-9s from new members of the tax-paying community are just the beginning. Use this checklist to bring order to the summer hiring process.

Direct deposit is a success; you should be worried

04/17/2024
Congratulations: Upwards of 90% of employees have their pay direct deposited. Your job now is to keep them there. To do this, you must confront four interlocking challenges: hacking, mistakes, technology and state laws allowing employees to opt out and receive paper checks.