Payroll

Shhh! How to make certain your private data stays that way

08/12/2014

Payroll handles sensitive data all the time, so it’s vital that you develop and maintain a robust privacy policy. Carla Gracen, product manager at Ceridian HCM, Inc., gave some policy pointers during her workshop at the American Payroll Association’s 32nd Annual Congress.

Pay for time spent at home reviewing records of hours worked?

08/08/2014

Q: We are about to implement a self-service time and attendance system that will allow employees to view their time cards at home. They’re not required to do this and they couldn’t make any changes to their time cards. Do we need to pay employees for this time?

I, Robot, want to be exempt from payroll taxes

08/07/2014

Speaking at an Employee Benefit Research Institute symposium on the future of benefits, Arnold Brown posed an intriguing—some might say disturbing—question.

Should we worry about hours worked (or not worked) at home?

08/06/2014

Q: During the last storm, several nonexempts didn’t have any paid time off available and we didn’t pay them for the days not worked. They’ve since claimed that they worked at home catching up on paperwork, even though this wasn’t directed by management. Most of them work on a manufacturing line, so we’re dubious that they “worked” at home. Could this get us in trouble if we’re audited?

The ABCs of parental leave for kids’ school and illness

08/04/2014

Parents don’t have to decide between work and home if your company’s policies give them the flexibility to deal with these issues.

August 2014: Employer’s business tax calendar

07/31/2014

This is your monthly guide to critical payroll due dates.

New COBRA notices further explain individual exchanges

07/30/2014

You can finally make the Affordable Care Act work for you. Newly proposed COBRA regulations update the model COBRA notices to expand the discussion of the individual Health Insurance Marketplace exchanges, through which COBRA-eligible employees may, instead, buy individual policies.

2015 inflation adjustments for health plans released

07/25/2014

The IRS has announced the 2015 inflation-adjusted figures for health savings accounts (HSAs) and high-deductible health plans (HDHPs).

SSA retires its letter forwarding program

07/24/2014

The SSA retired its letter forwarding program for good on May 19, 2014. The IRS retired its routine letter forwarding program in 2012. The end of these two programs may put you in a bind if you need to contact former employees about final checks or 401(k) plan distributions and you don’t have their current addresses.

California Supreme Court: Undocumented status doesn’t bar back pay

07/23/2014

The California Supreme Court has ruled that federal immigration law does not preempt a California law that extends state law protections to all workers regardless of their immigration status. However, the court held that federal law does preempt state law on the issue of liability for lost wages for any period after an employer discovers that an employee is not authorized to work in the United States.