• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Compensation & Benefits

May 2015: Employer’s business tax calendar

04/30/2015
Here’s your monthly guide to critical payroll due dates.

Is it ever OK for a boss to change a time sheet?

04/29/2015
Q. Is it illegal for managers to change exempt or nonexempt employees’ time sheets if they neglect to indicate that they took a day off?

Contesting unemployment? Be sure you have been fair

04/29/2015
Employees discharged for willful misconduct aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits. Generally, refusing an assignment is willful misconduct. But what it you only fire one and not others who refuse the same assignment?

Recruiting: Which benefits do employers tout to highly skilled candidates?

04/29/2015
More than three-fourths of employers talk up their health benefits when trying to recruit highly skilled job applicants. Fewer tout the value of other benefits.

Are there limits on employees’ refiling W-4 forms?

04/28/2015
Q: We have employees who change their W-4 forms on an almost weekly basis. This is becoming very burdensome. Management has asked whether there are any regulations that allow us to limit the number of W-4 changes employees can make a year. Also, how do you explain to full-time employees that they’re not exempt from paying federal income taxes?

Proposed rule would combat retirement plan conflicts of interest

04/28/2015
The U.S. Department of Labor has released a proposed rule designed to protect 401(k) and IRA investors by cracking down on conflicts of interest in the retirement plan marketplace. The proposed rule would update and close loopholes in the nearly 40-year-old Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which governs employer-sponsored retirement plans.

Study: ACA has little effect on employer health benefits

04/27/2015
Large U.S. employers are keeping health care costs down despite concerns over Affordable Care Act mandates, according to a new report by the ADP Research Institute.

Are employees’ mileage reimbursements taxable?

04/25/2015
Q: Employees who aren’t on call, but who are called back to work to handle an emergency, are reimbursed for all of their traveling expenses. Must we include these reimbursements in their income and tax them?

Courts create a wide berth for wage payment lawsuits

04/23/2015
Federal and state courts don’t have to go out on too long a limb to allow employees to sue for their unpaid wages and to find corporate officers personally liable under state wage payment laws for failing to pay those wages. Two recent cases illustrate.

Feds crack down on 401(k) hardship withdrawals

04/23/2015
Both the IRS and U.S. Department of Labor are increasing their enforcement scrutiny on companies that allow em­­ploy­­ees to take inappropriate hardship withdrawals from their 401(k) plans.