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Compensation & Benefits

What happens if we bounce a paycheck?

07/15/2015
Q. What are the penalties for failing to make timely payments or for issuing a paycheck that bounces under the Texas Payday Law?

After Obergefell, employers must ask: What to do about domestic-partner benefits?

07/14/2015
Domestic-partner benefits sprouted up in the 1990s because same-sex marriage wasn’t legal in most states. But following the Supreme Court’s landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision last month, there are no more legal barriers to same-sex marriages nationwide …

The paid leave movement marches on

07/14/2015
Paid sick leave is quickly catching on as a must-have benefit, driven by both government mandates and business realities. But is there a downside?

Employer withheld child support equals $30 billion and counting

07/10/2015
The federal Office of Child Support Enforcement reports that during fiscal year 2013, the last year for which statistics are available, 74% of all child support payments were made via paycheck withholding. That’s $30 billion. The OCSE is beefing up its electronic income withholding orders, or eIWOs, in order to make the child support withholding process even more efficient.

What’s work for unemployment comp purposes?

07/09/2015

Workers who are collecting unemployment compensation benefits and “perform services” for 32 hours or more per week aren’t eligible to receive benefits for that week. If they work for fewer than 32 hours, they do receive benefits. But what about time spent on-call? Do those hours count toward the threshold? A recent court decision says they don’t.

Swindled payroll clients see a sliver of chance to recoup

07/07/2015
The IRS may have to return to a bankruptcy estate a bankrupt payroll service bureau’s tax deposits that were collected from clients but were used to satisfy its own tax liabilities. A federal trial court has ruled that the bankruptcy trustee may be able to void transfers of the clients’ money to the IRS.

DOL criteria for legitimate unpaid internships

07/06/2015

Is that summer intern down the hall working for free? Watch out! Chances are, you should be paying her at least the minimum wage. To avoid having to pay interns, employers must meet all six of these criteria laid out in U.S. Department of Labor Fact Sheet #71.

401(k) plans get 3 new safe harbors

07/04/2015
If you have an auto-enrollment 401(k) or 403(b) plan, or a plan with escalation features, then you probably have administrative problems. Run-of-the-mill 401(k) plans aren’t a piece of cake to administer, either. The IRS has created three new safe harbors under which you don’t need to make corrective contributions for missed or incorrectly calculated employee pretax deferrals if certain conditions are met. The safe harbors became effective April 2, 2015.

The late bird doesn’t get the W-2 worm

07/03/2015
Procrastinators beware: Aug. 1 is rapidly approaching. That’s when penalties increase from $100 per form (up to $1,637,500) to $270 (up to $3,275,500) for W-2 missteps.

Post-ACA, small business still shuns self insurance

07/03/2015
Small businesses are not following the lead of bigger firms by self-insuring their health benefits to avoid the costs of the Affordable Care Act, according to new research by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute.