The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Civil Rights Acts have brought many changes into the workplace. One of the biggest changes for employers is with pre-employment physicals. Employers covered by civil rights laws and the ADA. are prohibited from having job applicants take pre-employment physicals. The employer can, however, make a conditional job offer, [...]
New Year's is traditionally a time to make resolutions for the upcoming months. Once you set your personal goals, it's time to get serious about your business goals. Here are ten resolutions you might consider making — and sticking to — to put you on track to prosper in 2019. 1. Compare 2018 financial performance [...]
The following table provides some important federal tax information for 2019, as compared with 2018. Many of the dollar amounts are unchanged and some changed only slightly due to inflation. Social Security/ Medicare 2019 2018 Social Security Tax Wage Base $132,900 $128,400 Medicare Tax Wage Base No limit No limit Employee portion of Social Security [...]
A whopping 75% of all child support is collected through employer-based income withholding orders (IWOs), according to the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE). In the most recent year for which figures are available, that amounted to $32 billion. The latest information from the Census Bureau indicates that nearly half of the country's 13.4 [...]
If you run your business operations through two or more corporations, the different entities may share some of the same employees. In that case, you can save payroll taxes by using a "common paymaster." Instead of having each business pay Social Security and Medicare tax for shared employees, common paymasters remit the appropriate amount of [...]
You may have legitimate reasons for monitoring some of your employees' communications at work, particularly emails generated on company servers. Creating a policy to monitor such activities requires a delicate balancing act to protect your company and gain access to the information you need, without violating employees' legal privacy protections. Reasons to Monitor Emails Why [...]
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is advancing a proposal that would enable 401(k) plan sponsors to automatically transfer account balances up to $5,000 of former participants who have left the company. The amounts would be transferred to the 401(k) plan of an employee's new employer. Assets transferred using this "auto portability" approach would make [...]
The employer's role in documenting alien employees is a balancing act. Under the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) you must verify through examination of certain documents that your employees are authorized to work in the United States. At the same time, you must avoid unfair employment practices. By law, you must complete an I-9 [...]
Department of Labor, which enforces employment rules for several other federal agencies. Paying employees means more than just issuing checks. Your company also needs to keep accurate records for current and past employees for a certain period of time. There are record requirements from both the IRS and the U.S. These records include the following [...]
With the holidays fast approaching, you might want to reward your employees for all their hard work in 2018. Gift-giving ideas include gift cards, holiday turkeys and achievement awards. Although your intent may be essentially the same in all these situations, the tax outcome for recipients of your goodwill may be quite different. Typically, it [...]
