Payroll

Employees in the National Guard or Reserves usually serve their military stint in the summer. An urgent question is whether you must provide short-term paid leave to these employees. The answer may be yes, according to a federal appeals court that ruled the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act’s rights and benefits clause may compel you to extend short-term paid leave to military employees if short-term paid leave is available to other employees.

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

Some aggressive marketers say employees’ food bills can be reimbursed tax-free through their health flexible spending accounts. The IRS says no.

Wage-and-hour enforcement is a delicate balance between federal and state law. Federal law always overrides state law when it provides more protection to employees, like teens working longer hours than the Fair Labor Standards Act allows, or in jobs prohibited by the FLSA’s hot-goods provision. It’s wise to keep this interplay in mind if you’ll be hiring teens this summer.