In the waning hours of New Year’s Day, Congress passed legislation averting a plunge off the “fiscal cliff” and making permanent Bush-era tax rates for all but the highest earners. Now employers can finally make concrete plans for their 2013 payroll operations.
Advice
The IRS has named the states that will be subject to FUTA credit reductions for 2012 FUTA taxes. FUTA credit reductions arise when states borrow from the federal government to pay regular unemployment benefits and fail to timely repay the loans.
Here’s a state-by-state breakdown of employer service liaison officers.
Question: Three retirees receive monthly pension checks. Two have stopped cashing them and the post office keeps returning the other retiree’s check as undeliverable. We’ve searched the obituaries and looked in our old HR files for their next of kin, but we’ve come up empty. We have to provide Forms 1099-R to them by the end of this month. What do we do?
Mark your calendar. By Jan. 31, employees must have their W-2s, and the IRS must have the fourth-quarter 941 form, and annual 940, 944 and 945 forms. Here’s what you must do now.
The standard mileage rate, which you may use to reimburse employees who drive their own cars on business, increases one penny to 56.5 cents a mile for 2013. You can also use the standard mileage rate to value employees’ personal use of moderately priced company cars.
The health care reform law doesn’t fully kick in for another year. But that hasn’t stopped DOL auditors from scrutinizing group health plans for provisions already in effect, such as the grandfathering rules and children staying on parents’ plan until they turn age 26.
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the IRS has issued a package of payroll, 401(k) and individual tax relief measures. This relief applies to individuals and businesses located in the disaster area, and to those whose tax records are located in the disaster area.
Regardless of what employees say or the lawsuits they file against you personally and the company, you must honor tax levies. Neither you nor the company will be liable to employees for honoring levies. And this remains true even if the levy turns out to be wrong.
The Fair Labor Standards Act is expansive enough to classify individual managers and corporate officers as employers. Upshot: You can be individually liable for FLSA violations. Key: the amount and degree of operational control you have over employees.
