Company held overtime hours until less busy workweeks One company's attempts to find an alternative to overtime pay led to a big fine – and a warning from the Dept. Of Labor (DOL) that others should heed. Investigators for the DOL found that Progressive Business Systems Ltd. Had a practice of banking employees' hours when [...]
SALARY LEVEL FOR WHO'S EXEMPT HAS INCREASED TO $913 PER WEEK In addition to releasing final regs changing the requirements for who's exempt from overtime, the Dept. of Labor has issued guidance that contains further details. Here's an overview of the guidance broken down by sector. Private employers Now that the salary level has increased [...]
Company must supply workers with independent contractor fact sheet Plus, $38,000 in back wages must be paid to misclassified workers The Dept. of Labor (DOL) wants to be sure employers are correctly classifying employees and independent contractors (IC). It's the latest strategy to boost compliance: explaining the difference to workers themselves. That's what happened when [...]
Asking non-citizens for more documents results in trouble The Immigration and Nationality Act requires a lot from employers. And even small mistakes – like asking for the wrong documents – can get companies in big trouble. One recent example: A Glendale, CA, Macy's location was hiring for an open position. The candidate it chose was [...]
Hours would have added up to over 40 in a workweek For the purposes of calculating overtime, the Dept. of Labor doesn't care where employees work – just who they're working for. And that can lead to a lot of confusion for multisite employers. A phoenix-area restaurant owner learned that the hard way when it [...]
When the IRS releases Form 941 for 2017, you'll notice a couple extra lines. That's because the IRS is creating a new tax credit for 2017 – and the agency recently released a new draft of the form. The new credit is set to go on Line 11 as "Qualified small business payroll tax credit [...]
Many taxpayers who made their next-day employment tax deposits on Tuesday, May 31, or semi-weekly employment tax deposits on Thursday, June 2, 2016, were incorrectly sent notices that their deposits were late. Due to a programming error, IRS systems did not recognize changes in deposit due dates created by the Memorial Day holiday observed on [...]
EMPLOYER'S PAYROLL SYSTEM MUST BE OVERHAULED, TOO The Dept. of Labor (DOL) usually settles violations by issuing fines and telling companies to fix problems. But occasionally it goes further. And instead of following up with the employer directly, it gets others to keep DOL officials in the loop. That recently happened with a Massachusetts-based construction [...]
The Department of Labor (DOL) released its final regulations making drastic changes to overtime exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). These changes will present considerable challenges to any employer that has employees they pay as Salary. Here are some key elements of the new regulation that you need to know now: 1. Salary [...]
