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Payroll

Beware! Don’t overreact to pay complaints

01/14/2010

In California, you can’t terminate employees for coming forward to press for enforcement of wage-and-hour claims, even if it turns out the claims were unfounded. That’s because California law strongly supports employee rights to get all the pay they’re entitled to, and efforts to punish employees who are wrong would chill efforts to challenge their employers’ pay policies.

What’s the rule for paying when employees clock in or out slightly before or after work?

01/14/2010

Q. If my employees clock in before their starting time and clock out after their day is scheduled to end, am I required to pay them for that extra time?

Is it legal to dock pay for employee foul-ups?

01/14/2010

Q. Can I deduct the cost of an employee’s error from his or her paycheck?

Do we need new record-retention rules now that the Ledbetter law has been enacted?

01/13/2010

Q. I keep hearing that the Ledbetter Act means we may need to hold onto documents about employees beyond our current retention policies. What do we need to do to make sure our document-retention policies comply with the law?

Unemployment Insurance

01/08/2010

HR Law 101: Under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) and state laws, employers are obligated to pay payroll taxes to provide unemployment compensation to employees who lose their jobs. By understanding how the system works, you may be able to cut your state tax rate through efficient claims control …

FLSA: Record-Keeping Requirements

01/02/2010

HR Law 101: The Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to keep records on wages, hours and other employee data, most of which is generally maintained in ordinary business practice. You do not need to keep the records in any particular form or use time clocks …

Joint-employer status may come down to who cuts the paychecks

12/22/2009

You may be liable for wage-and-hour violations involving people you don’t ordinarily think of as actual employees. That’s because California uses a long list of factors to consider when deciding whether someone is an employee. One of those factors: Who provides the individual’s paycheck and makes tax deductions? Another factor: Who gives directions to the worker?

Shoe’s on other foot now as Puma agrees to wage settlement

12/22/2009

Puma North America has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that it failed to pay on time about $350,000 to hundreds of employees. Judge Valerie Baker Fairbank conditionally certified the class to include the company’s hourly, nonexempt retail store employees who received late paychecks between 2004 and 2008.

A worker is asking us for a loan: How can we set up a legal repayment plan?

12/09/2009

Q. An employee wants to borrow $2,000 from the company to cover a family emergency, and we’re willing to make the loan. How should we structure the loan and repayment terms so we can deduct a certain amount from the employee’s bimonthly paycheck? We also want to be able to deduct the balance of the loan from the employee’s final paycheck in the event he is terminated before completely repaying the loan.

IRS to audit 6,000 firms to test employment tax compliance

12/03/2009

Starting in February 2010, the IRS will begin to audit 6,000 randomly selected employers to give the agency a snapshot of employment tax compliance in the United States. The audits will stretch across all industries and company sizes, and will focus on employment tax issues ranging from payroll taxes to independent contractor status to executive compensation.