Payroll

Unemployment Insurance

01/08/2010

HR Law 101: Under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) and state laws, employers are obligated to pay payroll taxes to provide unemployment compensation to employees who lose their jobs. By understanding how the system works, you may be able to cut your state tax rate through efficient claims control …

FLSA: Record-Keeping Requirements

01/02/2010

HR Law 101: The Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to keep records on wages, hours and other employee data, most of which is generally maintained in ordinary business practice. You do not need to keep the records in any particular form or use time clocks …

Joint-employer status may come down to who cuts the paychecks

12/22/2009

You may be liable for wage-and-hour violations involving people you don’t ordinarily think of as actual employees. That’s because California uses a long list of factors to consider when deciding whether someone is an employee. One of those factors: Who provides the individual’s paycheck and makes tax deductions? Another factor: Who gives directions to the worker?

Shoe’s on other foot now as Puma agrees to wage settlement

12/22/2009

Puma North America has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that it failed to pay on time about $350,000 to hundreds of employees. Judge Valerie Baker Fairbank conditionally certified the class to include the company’s hourly, nonexempt retail store employees who received late paychecks between 2004 and 2008.

A worker is asking us for a loan: How can we set up a legal repayment plan?

12/09/2009

Q. An employee wants to borrow $2,000 from the company to cover a family emergency, and we’re willing to make the loan. How should we structure the loan and repayment terms so we can deduct a certain amount from the employee’s bimonthly paycheck? We also want to be able to deduct the balance of the loan from the employee’s final paycheck in the event he is terminated before completely repaying the loan.

IRS to audit 6,000 firms to test employment tax compliance

12/03/2009

Starting in February 2010, the IRS will begin to audit 6,000 randomly selected employers to give the agency a snapshot of employment tax compliance in the United States. The audits will stretch across all industries and company sizes, and will focus on employment tax issues ranging from payroll taxes to independent contractor status to executive compensation.

What can we do? We accidentally overpaid an employee who was out on workers’ comp leave

12/01/2009

Q. While one of our employees was on workers’ compensation leave, she received disability payments. Due to a clerical error, we failed to take her off the payroll during that time, and she continued to receive her regular paychecks while on leave. The employee now refuses to sign an agreement to return the money on a payment schedule we were willing to set up. As a result, we would like to dock her pay for the overpayments. Are we allowed to do so?

Outsourcing payroll? Be sure someone can explain the math

11/20/2009

These days, with employers having to do more with less, lots of companies outsource some functions that take a lot of time. If a vendor handles your payroll, make sure someone on the inside understands exactly how the outside provider calculates tricky things like overtime pay.

Just desserts after five-year free lunch

11/18/2009

For Anthony Armatys, a job with communications company Avaya was the best job he never took. The Illinois man has pleaded guilty to theft by deception after he failed to report that Avaya, based in Basking Ridge, had deposited $469,000 worth of pay into his checking account, despite the fact that he never put in a day’s work for the company.

Contractor or employee? New IRS audits turn up heat on worker misclassification

11/16/2009

If your organization uses independent contractors, watch out: Starting in February, the IRS will begin intensive audits of 6,000 randomly selected employers. One of the key targets: Determining whether employers are improperly misclassifying workers as independent contractors to save on taxes and legal risks.