Payroll

Reporting agents: IRS offers new guidance on your responsibilities, rights

10/03/2012

Payroll reporting agents are service bureaus and other businesses that can handle all of your payroll duties, including depositing taxes and filing forms. New guidance from the IRS is designed to help you keep tabs on your reporting agent.

Special analysis: Lifestyle benefits = payroll taxes

09/28/2012

Corporate HR departments love nontraditional benefits—perks other than leave, health insurance and retirement benefits—because they’re generally cheap and build loads of employee good will. But many so-called lifestyle benefits are taxable, much to HR’s chagrin.

23-cent bonus adds up to one big payroll headache

09/24/2012

If an employer retains complete control over whether to pay a bonus and the amount of the bonus, then it can be excluded from an employee’s regular rate as a discretionary bonus. But both parts of this test count equally. Recently, a federal trial court ruled that bonuses that always equaled $50 failed the second part of the test.

Regs detail the 50% deduction limit for leased employees

09/21/2012

There’s more to leasing employees than clients remitting their pay to the leasing company. While employees can be reimbursed 100% for their substantiated meal expenses, business deductions are limited to 50%. Normally, the employer is stuck with this deduction disallowance. But the involvement of the leasing company complicates matters.

FMLA damages are payroll taxable, court rules

09/20/2012

For a long time, damages employees received under the FMLA weren’t considered payroll taxable because courts read the FMLA’s unique damages provision—which mandates damages equal to lost pay—as not being the same as taxable back pay. A federal trial court has now turned this reasoning on its head.

Any improvements planned for the W-2 Online website?

09/07/2012

Question: Does the Social Security Administration plan to improve the Business Services Online suite of services within W-2 Online?

Behind-the-scenes: DOL investigator pulls back curtain

09/06/2012

Whatever you do, don’t call a U.S. Department of Labor investigator an auditor. Auditors look for nickels and dimes. DOL investigators look for compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Employers’ child support collection efforts pay off

09/04/2012

According to recent statistics, 70% of child support is collected through wage withholding. Even so, some deadbeat parents slip through the cracks. To catch them, the Office of Child Support Enforcement has formed an alliance with employers to implement its newest program—the Passport Denial Program.

Payroll’s high stakes: What margin for error?

09/03/2012

Payroll has no margin for error. Get employees’ pay wrong and you’ll hear from them. Get your tax deposits wrong and you’ll hear from the IRS. Get it right and what do you hear? Silence. But don’t think you toil in anonymity.

Two 401(k) plans, two Section 415 limitations?

09/01/2012

Question: Several employees want to participate in two multi-employer 401(k) plans, but their combined contributions would exceed the Section 415 limitations on overall contributions. Can the employees legally participate in both plans during the same year?