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Payroll

Can we withhold pay if employees are late in completing and submitting time cards?

11/19/2010
Q. We have two employees who regularly fail to turn in their time cards on a timely basis. Can we hold off on paying them until they submit their time cards? Can we delay payment until the next pay period?

Confusing paystubs? Brace for a class-action

11/03/2010

How understandable are your employee paystubs? Do you get repeated questions about the same line items? As the following case shows, inconsistent payment methods and ambiguous deduction rules may spark employees to band together and sue.

4 steps for implementing a variable pay program

10/26/2010
Making variable pay work requires lots of interaction throughout the organization before, during and after implementation. As the business unit most likely in charge of implementation, it’s up to HR to make sure that happens. Here’s how to do it.

IRS issues one-year delay for reporting health costs on W-2s

10/19/2010
The health care reform law signed in March includes a provision that requires your organization to report the value of the health insurance provided to an employee on the employee’s Form W-2. But the IRS said last month that it will delay the requirement for at least one year. We’ve got links to the IRS documents that explain the postponement.

Business and tax provisions in the Small Business Jobs & Credit Act of 2010

10/13/2010

With the economy still struggling and lawmakers looking to take some sort of pro-business action before the November elections, Congress passed the Small Business Jobs Act in September, a $42 billion measure to provide tax breaks and loan assistance to small businesses. President Obama signed the bill on Sept. 27, 2010. Here are the highlights of this legislation that affect businesses:

Confusing paystubs? Brace for a class-action lawsuit

09/24/2010
Employees may not always understand their paystubs, especially when they work for different pay rates some of the time or when deductions are taken without clear explanations. The confusion may even prompt employees to band together and sue.

Is it OK to pay workers just once a month?

09/24/2010
Q. Is it legal to adopt a once-a-month payroll for hourly employees?

Can we push employees to donate to charity?

09/24/2010
Q. Is it legal for us to strongly encourage our employees to have money withheld from their paychecks to support a charity drive, like the United Way?

Loose lips lead to lawsuits: Consult lawyer before releasing personal info

09/22/2010
Privacy laws are confusing. If you are unsure about whether you can release any employee information, check with your attorney. That may help you avoid the kind of drawn-out litigation one employer recently endured.

New laws for a new year: Illinois employers face new credit check, wage payment requirements

09/16/2010

The Illinois General Assembly has been busy, passing legislation that HR professionals need to know about. Specifically: the Employee Credit Privacy Act, which prohibits many Illinois employers from basing hiring, promotion and other employment decisions on the credit histories of employees and job applicants, and the Wage Payment and Collection Act, which protects employees who have not been paid all their wages.