New and Newsworthy
Health Inquiries Especially Dangerous
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, pending a satisfactory completion of a medical exam. Under civil rights laws and [...]
Ideas to Strengthen Your Business in 2019 and Beyond
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 to the budget. Did you meet the goals you set at the beginning [...]
Important Tax Figures for 2019
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 6.2% 6.2% Employee portion of Medicare 1.45% 1.45% Individual Retirement Accounts 2019 2018 [...]
Dealing with Child Support Withholding Orders
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 million custodial single parents have some type of child support arrangement in place, [...]
Shave Payroll Costs for Shared Employees
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 tax just once. In other words, no more tax would be paid than [...]
Balance Your Right to Monitor Communications with Employees’ Privacy Rights
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 would an employer need to monitor employees' communications at work? Valid reasons for [...]
