Payroll Management

Group health insurers that don’t spend between 80 and 85 cents of every premium dollar on medical care and health care quality improvement must make so-called medical loss ratio (MLR) rebates to employees, beginning Aug. 1, 2012.

Today’s tight economy has prompted many employers to try to reduce costs—including overtime—by classifying workers as independent contractors instead of employees. That hasn’t escaped the notice of the IRS and the U.S. Department of Labor, which have stepped up efforts to deter misclassification.

Under tax code Section 83, you don’t have to tax employees who receive company stock, stock options or other property that is subject to a substantial risk of forfeiture until the risk lapses and the property vests. Proposed regulations now define what counts as a substantial risk of forfeiture.

It seems counterintuitive, but you can use your consent to extend the statute of limitations on payroll tax assessments as leverage with auditors. But only if the proper party signs Form SS-10, Consent to Extend the Time to Assess Employment Taxes. The IRS has concluded in emailed advice that a single-member LLC owner is the correct party to sign.

If you have employees away on extended military deployments or who will train for two weeks this summer as members of the National Guard or Reserve, you face tricky pay problems. Here’s what Payroll needs to know.

Not ­getting your tax notices forwarded to your new address can be a deadly oversight. To separate out notifications from individuals and businesses, the IRS has created new Form 8822-B.

Payroll procedures for handling bonuses are affected by the FLSA. While such bonuses can increase morale, provide incentive to work harder, and entice strong applicants to join a company, improper treatment of employee bonuses can lead to FLSA violations. 

Nowadays, IRS auditors ask for your electronic accounting records. But software files often contain data beyond the audit years, and software programs routinely create metadata for every data file created. So how do you keep the IRS from snooping around the personal and confidential business informations contained in those files?

The Fair Labor Standards Act doesn’t require you to provide employees with meal breaks. It does require you to pay employees whose meal breaks last for fewer than 30 minutes and those who work through their meal breaks. However, 40 states do have laws covering meal and rest breaks. This chart summarizes those laws.

$3,400: That’s how much the tax gap—the difference between what’s owed and what’s paid—costs every single taxpayer in extra taxes. And the figure is only growing. Proposals to close the tax gap were raised at a recent congressional hearing.