Payroll

Cellphones: Can you hear me now?

05/25/2012

Q: We reimburse employees for the cost of their cellphones, as well as their wireless coverage. Is the reimbursement for the cost of the cellphone taxable?

Is it OK for managers to adjust timecards?

05/24/2012

Q. Our employees punch a time clock and then go to job sites. Sometimes they don’t take a lunch break. But when they do, they’re unable to clock out and back in, so there’s no time record. Can a manager adjust the timecard by marking through the daily total and deducting the lunch time?

Health care reporting: What’s reportable?

05/24/2012

Q: Are amounts paid for wellness programs and on-site medical clinics reportable in Box 12 of employees’ W-2s? Also, can you explain when dental and vision plan costs are reportable on Form W-2? What qualifies these benefits as “separate” plans?

How to handle pay for Guard and Reserve members

05/22/2012

If you have employees away on extended military deployments or who will train for two weeks this summer as members of the National Guard or Reserve, you face tricky pay problems.

What are the pay rules when we have to close because of an emergency?

05/18/2012

Q. Our offices were closed due to a phoned-in bomb threat. As a result, we were forced to send home all our employees. Do we need to pay employees for showing up to work that day?

DOL to take a tough stance on enforcing tip rules

05/18/2012

The DOL recently gave the nod to national enforcement of regulations specifying that employees’ tips are their sole property, regardless of whether employers take the tip credit. This should serve as a timely reminder, since many teens and college students regularly earn tips during the summer.

Real-life HR: How to respond to a garnishment order

05/17/2012

Bankruptcies and foreclosures have been making the news for the past four years. But there’s a quieter side effect of the down economy that’s fraught with traps for unwary employers: The concurrent and growing trend of court-ordered or government-issued wage garnishments. Here are the basics you need to know if you receive an order to garnish an employee’s wages.

Special analysis: What to do with electronic records

05/15/2012

Nowadays, IRS auditors ask for your electronic accounting records. But software files often contain data beyond the audit years, and software programs routinely create metadata for every data file created. So how do you keep the IRS from snooping around the personal and confidential business informations contained in those files?

August 2012: Employer’s business tax calendar

05/14/2012

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Plan ahead now for W-2 health care reporting

05/10/2012

By the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to let us know whether some or all of the Affordable Care Act health care reform law will stand—or be struck down. The highly anticipated decision notwithstanding, it’s a good idea to get your W-2 reporting ducks in a row now.