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Compensation & Benefits

Most employers auto-enroll 401(k) participants

03/10/2015
Looking for a no-cost way to help employees save more for retirement? Consider making enrollment in your 401(k) automatic for all employees. They’ll have to affirmatively opt out if they don’t want to participate.

Watch out for, prepare to fix, these 6 common overtime pay errors

03/09/2015
Failing to properly pay for all overtime hours worked could result in more financial harm than good. Here are six payroll pitfalls you must avoid.

Unemployment comp possible even when fired ‘for cause’

03/09/2015
Generally, employees fired for misconduct aren’t eligible for unemployment compensation benefits. That’s because payments are due to employees who are unemployed through no fault of their own. But not every mistake counts as misconduct.

FICA refunds due on ‘excess’ mass transit fringes

03/09/2015
Congress’ last-minute and retroactive reinstatement of parity between mass transit benefits and employer-provided parking—to $250 a month for both, for 2014 only—is no favor to Payroll. If you allowed employees to defer more than $130 for mass transit benefits last year on an after-tax basis, or paid out of the company’s coffers, they and you are due FICA refunds on the difference—up to $120 a month.

Walmart voluntarily raises its minimum wage to $9

03/06/2015
Retail giant Walmart has announced it will raise its minimum wage to $9 an hour,  and vowed that by February 2016, 500,000 of its employees will be earning at least $10 per hour.

IRS won’t bow to Tax Court in payroll tax case

03/06/2015
Closely-held corporations and their owners can seem inseparable. But this fluidity stops at Payroll’s door—in other words, when income tax withholding begins. The IRS recently issued a document called an Action on Decision in which it said that it won’t follow a Tax Court decision that required it to honor a company’s designation of its delinquent payroll taxes as payment for a specific employee’s delinquent income taxes.

Is it double-dipping to receive both workers’ comp and Social Security benefits?

03/03/2015
Q. Can an injured worker obtain both workers’ compensation benefits and Social Security disability benefits at the same time?

Can missed quotas add up to docked pay?

03/03/2015
Q. Can an employee’s pay be docked for failing to meet a production quota?

Philadelphia mayor signs paid sick leave bill

03/03/2015
Effective May 13, Philadelphia em­­ployers of 10 or more must provide one hour of paid leave for every 40 hours an employee works. Mayor Michael Nutter had twice vetoed similar legislation, fearing that the mandate would burden city employers still emerging from the recession.

What to do if your health plan was affected by Anthem’s data breach

03/02/2015

In February, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, one of the largest health insurers in the country, announced it had been targeted by a cyber attack that compromised the confidentiality of medical and other personal information maintained on its computer systems. If your organization provides benefits through Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, your employees have probably been affected.