Ensuring Your Business is Compliant

Feb 12th, 2016

There is a lot happening on the HR compliance front at the moment including ACA filing extensions, updated government forms, and changes to who employers must pay for overtime. The O’Connor Group wants to ensure that you are knowledgeable about changes taking place, and that your company is taking all necessary steps to remain compliant.

In June of last year President Obama announced a long-anticipated change in labor rules, which, when implemented, will extend overtime benefits to millions of workers. The Department of Labor (DOL) is expected to issue its final ruling later this year. Once the final rule is issued, employers will only have 60 days to comply. That’s two months to make sure all I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed. Ensuring compliance will require a multi-step process including completing a review of all of your job descriptions and compensation plans. It is important to begin reviewing positions now in order to ensure you are ready when the new regulations are announced.

Affordable Care Act

Employers with 50 or more full-time employees or part-time equivalents are required to submit ACA, Affordable Care Act, information reporting forms to the IRS as well as ACA disclosure forms directly to employees. The deadlines for filing the 2015 forms have been extended. The ACA information reporting forms are now due to the IRS on or before May 31, 2016 (by mail) or by June 30, 2106 (if filing electronically). The new ACA disclosures (form 1095-C) must be distributed to employees by March 31, 2016.

Inclement Weather Policy

We’ve already experienced our first blizzard of the year in the Eastern US. If the trend from past years continues, this storm will not be the last one we see this year. It’s important for you to have an inclement weather policy spelling out the rules that apply to exempt and nonexempt employees when you are open or closed during inclement weather. There are different rules for exempt and non-exempt workers, and a clearly written policy will help employees understand how they will be paid in the event that you need to close the office, or if they decide not to report to work because of a storm.

Forms

Over the past five years, many cities, counties, and states have passed what have been called “ban the box” laws. In their most basic form, these laws require employers to remove questions about criminal history from their initial application forms. Some laws are more restrictive for employers. Both New Jersey and Philadelphia have these type of laws in place.

US employers are required to have a Form I-9 showing proof of eligibility to work in the US on file for all of your employees. The current I-9 form is set to expire on March 31, 2016. Until a new form is published you should continue to use the current form, found here, even if a new form is not published before March 31st. We will update you once the new form is published.

Finally, every year the IRS publishes a new Form W-4. You should have any new hires during the year, or employees making any changes to their tax withholds, complete the current form. A link to the 2016 form can be found here.

For more in-depth information on compliance click here.