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Compensation & Benefits

We interrupt your perfectly good day for year-end anxiety

01/03/2012
Payroll doesn’t have time to shake off any lingering holiday blues, since it’s down-to-the-wire time for W-2s. Here are two tax questions about gift cards and staff discounts:

Sheetz builds fitness center for employees and families

01/03/2012
The Sheetz gas-and-grocery retail chain is building a new health and wellness center at its distribution facility in Claysburg, Pa., for employees and their families. Bill Young, director of compensation, benefits and risk management, calls the center part of the firm’s “Shwellness” program.

IRS loosens de minimis deposit rules, sets 944 filing rules

01/02/2012
Under the de minimis deposit safe harbor rule, employers that accumulate less than $2,500 in payroll taxes during the current calendar quarter can pay those taxes with their Form 941, rather than deposit them. Final regulations allow quarterly filers to use the safe harbor rule if their accumulated taxes for the current or preceding quarter are less than $2,500.

Bonuses: You paid them, now when can you deduct them?

01/02/2012
If you use an accrual method of accounting and allocate money to a bonus pool, you can breathe a sigh of tax deductible relief. The IRS has concluded that employers can take a current tax deduction for a fixed amount of bonuses that will be paid to employees during the next year.

Final MLR regs raise ERISA, Payroll questions

01/01/2012
Final medical loss ratio (MLR) regulations, which took effect Jan. 1, 2012, require group health in­­surers to spend between 80 and 85 cents of every pre­­mium dollar on medical care and health care quality improvement. Insurers that fall short must make rebates to participants, beginning Aug. 1, 2012.

4.2% employee Social Security rate extended through February 2012

12/31/2011
After weeks of wrangling, the House of Representatives and the Senate on Dec. 23, 2011 agreed to extend a 2 percentage point payroll tax cut for two months to buy time for talks on a full-year renewal. President Obama immediately signed the bill into law. The vote removes employer uncertainly about how to handle payroll withholding starting Jan. 1, 2012.

Chicago’s City Colleges take charge of leave, insurance

12/30/2011
The City Colleges of Chicago has ended its practice of allowing em­­ployees to “cash out” sick days when they quit their jobs. The policy applies to administrators and nonunion employees hired after Jan. 1, 2012, and is a first change resulting from a comprehensive review of benefits ordered by the school’s chancellor last fall.

Health premiums rose faster than pay

12/28/2011
Premiums for health benefits rose faster than employee pay in all 50 states from 2003 to 2010. Total premiums for family coverage—what employers and employees pay—increased 50%, and employees’ annual share of premiums increased by 63%.

IRS travel rules: Panama Canal, here we come!

12/28/2011
If em­­ployees attend a business convention in Europe, you can’t reimburse their business expenses on a tax-free basis unless they demonstrate that the convention’s location satisfies heightened standards of reasonableness. But employees who attend business conventions in North America need only establish the familiar elements of the accountable plan rules for their reimbursements to be tax-free …

Employer wins commute dispute

12/28/2011

Employees must be paid for their pre-shift or post-shift activities, if those activities are integral and indispensable to the performance of their principal jobs. That can stretch a workday and possibly require you to pay for employees’ commuting time. But not all pre-shift or post-shift work is the same.