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 ...
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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 ...
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05/01/2008
Q. Can an employer in Colorado fine an employee who quits without giving two weeks’ notice? ...
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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? ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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04/21/2008
Record numbers of bankruptcies and foreclosures are making a big splash in the news. 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 ...
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04/18/2008
Q. We have received garnishment orders for several employees. This could pose an administrative burden on our small HR department. What can we do to reduce this burden? ...
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04/17/2008
Q. We don’t allow our employees to punch the time clock more than seven minutes early or clock out more than seven minutes late. How do we round up or down when calculating how to pay them for clocking in early or out late? — J.N., Connecticut ...
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04/01/2008
Federal wage-and-hour laws require you to have a reliable system to accurately keep track of employees’ hours and pay. Casual timekeeping systems can easily trigger a back-wage lawsuit. Companies subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act must keep records for both nonexempt and exempt employees ...
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04/01/2008
Q. Our staff includes employees who do repair work and are paid by the job. We offer a 90-day guarantee to our customers. If a customer has to have a repair redone, can we deduct from the employee’s subsequent wages the money we paid for the faulty first repair? ...
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04/01/2008
Minnesota is one of 29 states that have signed memoranda of understanding with the IRS to share enforcement information on employment tax collection matters. The move is part of the IRS’ Questionable Employment Tax Practices (QETP) initiative ...
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04/01/2008
Q. We have received a wage assignment for one of our employees. How long do we have to keep sending money in? ...
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04/01/2008
Q. We have an employee for whom we have received two wage assignments. Which creditor do we pay? Both proportionally, or just the first one? Or do we alternate? ...
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04/01/2008
Q. Handling wage assignments seems like a lot of trouble. What if we skip the whole thing? Can we get in trouble? ...
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