On May 4, 2020, in response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Department of the Treasury, and the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), Department of Labor, issued rules extending deadlines for participants and beneficiaries of certain group health, disability, and welfare plans to make certain benefit elections, give certain
IRS Chief Counsel: CA Waiting Time Penalties Are Not Wages
For years now, Section 203 of the California Labor Code has required employers to pay a penalty for willful failure to provide a departing employee with their final wages on their last day of employment (or within 72 hours for employee who suddenly quit). The amount of this penalty, often referred to as “waiting time
IRS Expands Voluntary Worker Classification Compliance Program
The IRS has recently made it easier for businesses to participate in its worker classification voluntary compliance program, which allows a company that has been misclassifying workers as independent contractors to come forward voluntarily and reclassify the workers as employees. Under this program, employers pay only a small fraction of the potential payroll tax liability.
Payroll Tax Fraud by Accountant Keeps Employer’s Statute of Limitations Open
The Second Circuit recently ruled that the fraudulent acts of an employer’s accountant in filing payroll tax returns resulted in an open-ended statute of limitations, which allowed the IRS to go back beyond the three year statute of limitations to assess back taxes against the employer (City Wide Transit v Commissioner). This should