Payroll

May 2015: Employer’s business tax calendar

04/30/2015

Here’s your monthly guide to critical payroll due dates.

Happy campers, happier parents

04/30/2015

Employees looking for a place to park their preteens during the summer should consider day camp. Tax break: Parents may defray day camp expenses, including expenses incurred for specialty camps, through the company’s dependent care assistance program, up to the $5,000 annual limit. Also covered: child care expenses for kids who stay home.

Are there limits on employees’ refiling W-4 forms?

04/28/2015

Q: We have employees who change their W-4 forms on an almost weekly basis. This is becoming very burdensome. Management has asked whether there are any regulations that allow us to limit the number of W-4 changes employees can make a year. Also, how do you explain to full-time employees that they’re not exempt from paying federal income taxes?

Are employees’ mileage reimbursements taxable?

04/25/2015

Q: Employees who aren’t on call, but who are called back to work to handle an emergency, are reimbursed for all of their traveling expenses. Must we include these reimbursements in their income and tax them?

Courts create a wide berth for wage payment lawsuits

04/23/2015

Federal and state courts don’t have to go out on too long a limb to allow employees to sue for their unpaid wages and to find corporate officers personally liable under state wage payment laws for failing to pay those wages. Two recent cases illustrate.

Sneak peek at the IRS’ new guidance on meals

04/19/2015

The IRS hasn’t addressed whether employer-provided meals are taxable to employees in decades. So it caused some alarm when the item showed up on its 2014-2015 priority guidance plan. According to Paul Carlino, chief, Employment Tax Branch 1, IRS’ Office of Division Counsel/Associate Chief Counsel (Tax Exempt and Government Entities), the IRS is getting ready to issue new regulations and perhaps a revenue procedure.

Guide to 2015 state direct deposit and paycard laws

04/17/2015

States usually require that employees voluntarily participate in electronic pay programs. This chart summarizes the states’ direct deposit/paycard rules. “Mandatory” means that a state allows you to make e-payment a condition of employment, if you choose. States that don’t have laws aren’t included.

As military-leave season nears, plan now for reservists’ absence

04/17/2015

Summer is usually when employees who belong to the National Guard and military Reserves give their two weeks of duty to Uncle Sam. Some military-connected employees may be deployed for longer periods of time. Now is the time to prepare for their absence.

FICA refunds available for same-sex married couples

04/14/2015

The IRS will allow couples whose same-sex domestic arrangements were retroactively classified as marriages, and their employers, to apply for FICA refunds.

Status report: Forms 941 migration to MeF platform

04/13/2015

Your first-quarter 2015 Form 941 is due by the end of this month. If you e-file, the IRS has some important news for you: It is permanently retiring its two current e-filing options—the 94x E-file Program Method or the PIN-based 94x Online E-file Program Method—now called legacy systems, by the end of this year. In their place, the IRS is shifting all payroll returns to its Modernized e-File platform, or MeF.