Compensation & Benefits

When providing benefits, make sure they go to everyone entitled to them

01/24/2014

Benefits like vacation, sick leave, relocation payments and the like must be provided equally to all similarly situated employees. Don’t reward some with additional perks and leave others out—unless you’re willing to risk a lawsuit.

IRS issues integration rules for HRAs and FSAs

01/24/2014

You can go some way toward meeting the Affordable Care Act’s requirements that your group plan provide minimum value and is affordable by setting up health reimbursement accounts or health flexible spending accounts for employees. But according to new IRS guidance, these accounts must be integrated into your group health plan.

Year-end 2013: Your last chance to dance

01/23/2014

You’re not out of the 2013 woods yet. In a Program Manager Technical Advice memorandum, the IRS explains that if you fail to provide employees with Forms W-2 and payees with Forms 1099, you can be socked with a penalty.

Status of Health Flexible Spending Accounts, Health Reimbursement Accounts and Health Savings Accounts under the Affordable Care Act

01/22/2014

The ABCs of HRAs, FSAs and HSAs: It can be difficult to pick your way through the alphabet soup of group health plan add-ons, such as HRAs, FSAs and health savings accounts (HSAs). To help you along, this chart lists the characteristics of these accounts and how the health care reform law affects each.

Looming ACA issues in 2014: Nondiscrimination rules & Cadillac tax

01/21/2014

Employers subject to the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2015, have some complicated issues to sort out: How will yet-to-be-settled nondiscrimination rules and the looming “Cadillac tax” affect their benefits plans?

Programmers pitch ideas in ‘Shark Tank’-type competition

01/17/2014

Execs at Geneca, a Chicago-based custom software development firm, took a cue from the hit TV show “Shark Tank” to encourage its 100 employees to come up with innovative ideas. The competition—set up like a science fair—is called the “Innovation Challenge/Shark Tank.”

New employee, old debt: Is pay-back of previous Section 127 benefits taxable?

01/15/2014

Q: A new employee must now pay back money she received from her old employer as a Section 127 educational benefit. We will assume this debt as part of our hiring agreement. The hiring manager said that since this was originally a tax-free benefit, nothing is taxable. This doesn’t sound right to me. Who’s correct?

Workplace lexicon: Value-based insurance design

01/14/2014

This is the insurance industry’s lingo for a system of carrots and sticks that rewards patients for undergoing medical procedures with a good track record of success (think flu vaccines and hypertension treatment) and penalizes them for treatment of questionable value (hip-replacement surgery and many kinds of high-tech imaging, for example).

Mexico’s minimum wage up

01/14/2014

Increasing the minimum wage isn’t just a hot topic in the United States. On Jan. 1, Mexico’s minimum wage rose 3.9%, to at least 63.77 pesos—about $4.88—per day.

More small businesses might drop health benefits

01/13/2014

The Affordable Care Act probably won’t prompt many large employers to drop health insurance benefits, but small businesses are more likely to do so than they were last year, according to the National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans.