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Compensation & Benefits

Workers seek lower out-of-pocket health costs

11/19/2019
What’s highest on employees’ health insurance wish-lists? Predictable out-of-pocket costs, according to research by Kaiser Health News—even if that means paying higher monthly premiums.

The ACA individual mandate isn’t dead, it’s moved to the states

11/14/2019
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act repealed the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate—a requirement that all individuals have health insurance providing minimum value—beginning this year. Some states have jumped into the breach by enacting their own individual mandate laws. And just like the ACA, part of the enforcement mechanism is employer reporting.

In the Payroll Mailbag: December ’19

11/14/2019
Reporting health benefits on Form W-2 … Scavenger hunt prizes: Taxable or not?

Federal contract workers get a 20¢ raise in 2020

11/14/2019
Beginning Jan. 1, 2020, the minimum hourly wage for nonexempts who work on or in connection with new federal contracts or replacements for expiring contracts increases 20¢, to $10.80 an hour.

Fix it fast: Handling 27 biweekly payrolls in 2020

11/14/2019
Employees paid biweekly are paid 26 times a year. Except when they’re not. And they’re not every 11 or 12 years, when there are 27 biweekly pay periods. Employees paid weekly experience an extra pay period every five or six years. The 27th/53rd pay period phenomenon is real and can cause havoc if you’re not prepared.

Withholding allowances are down, but not out, for 2020

11/14/2019
The good news, such as it is, is that the IRS can’t completely ditch withholding allowances, even though it’s dropped the word Allowance from the W-4, officially renaming it Employee’s Withholding Certificate. Here are our estimates of the 2020 withholding allowances.

Employers seek new health care cost-control strategies

11/12/2019
Curbing the cost of health care and increasing its affordability remain the top priorities for almost all employers over the next three years, according to the 24th annual Best Practices in Health Care Employer Survey by Willis Towers Watson.

Health benefit spending follows the 20/80 rule

11/12/2019
A new study from the Employee Benefit Research Institute finds that a small minority of employees account for a huge majority of health insurance plan spending.

Higher health premiums mean less spent elsewhere

11/12/2019
More than 80% of adults told pollsters they would have to cut back on other spending when health care costs increase.

Yes, same employee can file several EPA suits

11/07/2019
Can an employee keep coming back to court with a new comparator? The answer appears to be a qualified “yes” as long as the new co-worker comparator arrived on the scene after the earlier lawsuit began.