Payroll

Requirements for maintaining payroll records

05/28/2008

Q. What payroll records must my company keep under North Carolina law?…

Effort to Extend Statute of Limitations on Pay-Bias Lawsuits Fails in Congress

05/12/2008

Federal anti-discrimination law gives employees either 180 or 300 days (depending on the state they live in) to file an employment discrimination claim with the EEOC. Pro-employee legislation that aimed to extend that limit much further failed in Congress this month.

Here’s a tip: Know law on paying employees who work for tips

05/12/2008

Hundreds of thousands of Floridians rely on tips for part of their incomes. To stay on the right side of wage-and-hour laws, their employers need to understand the somewhat tricky interplay of tip income and the minimum wage …

N.J. adopts paid family-Leave law

05/02/2008

New Jersey has become the third state to adopt paid family leave. The law will allow workers to take up to six weeks of paid leave to care for newborns, newly adopted children or sick relatives. Workers, who will pay for the benefit through payroll deductions starting Jan. 1, will be entitled to two-thirds of their salary …

Severance pay is FICA taxable

05/02/2008

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled that severance pay is considered taxable wages under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA). The decision in CSX Corporation v. United States means organizations must pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on severance payments …

You picked a fine time to leave me: Penalties for quitting without notice

05/01/2008

Q. Can an employer in Colorado fine an employee who quits without giving two weeks’ notice? …

How can we recover funds accidentally overpaid to an employee?

04/25/2008

Q. We recently overpaid an employee by $3,000, but we did not discover the discrepancy for six months. Can we automatically and legitimately withhold those wages from the employee’s paycheck? Also, would it be inappropriate to dock additional wages because the employee did not make us aware of the mistake? …

Is your PEO ripping you off? A primer on the fine print

04/24/2008

Say you’ve decided to hire a professional employer organization (PEO) to handle some of your HR services—or you’re considering new PEO vendors to replace your current one. You have a choice of more than 700 PEOs to choose from. Prices and services offered by PEOs vary so much it’s hard to spot the best deal …

Top 10 things to know about North Carolina Wage and Hour Act

04/23/2008

Many employers are familiar with the basic requirements of federal wage-and-hour law—the minimum wage, how to calculate overtime and who must receive it. But the North Carolina Wage and Hour Act is often a mystery to employers and employees alike. Here are the top 10 things you should know about the act …

How to respond when employees’ creditors come calling

04/21/2008

Record numbers of bankruptcies and foreclosures have been making news for years. However, a quieter phenomenon—one fraught with traps for unwary employers—is a concurrent and growing trend of court-ordered or government-issued wage garnishments. Here’s practical advice on what to do when someone wants a piece of your employee’s paycheck.