Gain Employee Loyalty with Commuting Tax Breaks
Commuting can be a nightmare for employees. Your company can help by offering your staff members some financial relief from their commuting hassles. Employees appreciate this benefit and there’s a bonus for your company: You can save money on payroll taxes. Similar to a cafeteria plan election, staff members can have money deducted on a pre-tax…
Gender-Based Pay Discrimination Allegations: Is Your Business Vulnerable?
Laws and regulations governing gender-based pay equality have been on the books for decades. But equal pay for men and women has become a hot button in the business world, thanks to the #MeToo movement and some recent surveys documenting widespread pay disparity. Recent Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) gender-based discrimination allegations suggest that many employers…
Classification of Workers: Could Section 530 Come to the Rescue?
The IRS and employers often are at loggerheads over the classification of workers as employees or independent contractors. Typically, many employers want to to treat workers as independent contractors, while the IRS often determines that workers are misclassified employees. Sometimes, the issue winds up in the courts. Fortunately, there might be a way for employers…
Watch the Language in Employee Handbooks
Your company needs an employee handbook or personnel manual to ensure that everyone understands the policies, procedures and rules. But improperly drawn, a handbook or manual can create a binding obligation that can be used against you. What you don’t want is for the documents to be interpreted as an employment contract. Keep that in…
Help Make Incurred Cost Submissions Less Laborious
No matter how much we try to streamline and automate the incurred cost submission preparation process, it’s a hard-and-cold fact that it always presents unique challenges for contractors. It is rare for contractors to be able to take the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) Incurred Cost Electronically (ICE) model, enter their setup information, import their…
An Easier Way to Screen Applicant Resumes
Screening job applicants is a cumbersome process but you can save time and money by making your company’s website an integral part of your recruiting strategy. How? Design an online career center and applicant screening program. You can hire a firm to handle the task, or if your company has skilled IT staff, you can…
Employee or Independent Contractor? Classify Workers Correctly
The IRS has publicly stated it is cracking down on organizations that improperly classify workers as independent contractors instead of employees. Are you confident that your employee classifications would stand up to IRS scrutiny? Understand the Requirements If a worker is an employee, your not-for-profit organization must provide a Form W-2 annually and withhold income…
Stay on Top of Retirement Tax Angles
Compounding of earnings and starting to save early have a tremendous positive effect on how much you accumulate for retirement. But to make the most of compounding, you also need to be smart about taxes.If you don’t plan ahead, the federal and state governments could collect a huge portion of your retirement savings. Uncle Sam can…
Do You Owe the AMT?
American educational reformer Horace Mann called education “the great equalizer.”1 In football, it’s been said that turnovers are the great equalizer. And anyone who’s ever watched CBS’s “The Amazing Race,” knows airport delays are the equalizer in a race around the world. In taxes, there’s also an equalizer of sorts. It’s called the alternative minimum tax (AMT)….
How Will Working after Retirement Affect Your Social Security Benefits?
In one survey, 79% of current workers stated they plan to work for pay after retiring.1 And that possibility raises an interesting question: How will working affect Social Security benefits? To answer that question requires an understanding of three key concepts: full-retirement age, the earnings test, and taxable benefits. Full Retirement Age Most workers don’t face an…