Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
by Robert J. Sniffen and Jeff Slanker Effective January 6, 2015, same-sex marriage will be lawful in Florida. On December 19, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to extend the postponement of a federal district court’s decision that Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. The district court judge postponed his order until January 5, 2015, […]
by Kevin J. Skelly Paid sick leave laws are gaining ground in New Jersey, as new laws in several cities are scheduled to take effect in the coming weeks and months. Paterson, Irvington, Passaic, Newark, East Orange, Jersey City, Trenton, and Montclair have passed laws either in city councils or, in the case of Trenton […]
The next three months are crunch time. Employers have to get moving on several deadlines, most of them required under health care reform. Some reform rules should have taken effect in 2014, but were subject to the year-long delay instituted by the Obama administration. Health Plan Identifiers Nov. 5, 2014 is the deadline for large group […]
The survey, sent to a random sample of SHRM members, had 510 respondents, which was a 13% response rate.
IRS on Aug. 29 issued two sets of questions and answers about reporting on health coverage for large employers under Section 6056 and for all employers under Section 6055 of the reform law. Section 6056 reporting is required by “applicable large employers” that provide health coverage to their full-time employees and is needed for the government to carry out […]
A study by Fidelity Investments of 13 million 401(k) investors across U.S. metropolitan regions pinpointed the cities where plan loans are most heavily used. The analysis found the greatest percentage of participants with outstanding plan loans, at 33 percent, in the McAllen, Texas, area. The second-largest proportions of borrowers were in the Riverside and Bakersfield, […]
A self-insured employer that explicitly excludes same-gender spouses from health plan coverage did not violate ERISA’s benefit interference or fiduciary breach provisions by having such exclusionary language, a federal district court in New York ruled. A same-gender couple had argued that, in light of U.S. v. Windsor, because the plan declined to cover the spouse, the employer interfered […]
A series of new decisions in Tussey v. ABB Inc. handed down by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on March 19 brought good news about allegations of excessive fees for all parties—the suing retirement plan participants, the employer plan sponsor and especially the administrator, Fidelity. The ruling did not provide a clear judicial […]
The 7th Circuit in a 2-1 ruling refused to grant a preliminary injunction to Notre Dame University, which would have freed the university from participating in reform’s requirement to provide contraceptives at no cost to all women. In so doing the court criticized the university’s argument that signing an EBSA Form 700 — expressing objections to the contraceptive […]
Companies with 50-99 employees that do not offer health insurance to their workers will not be subject to fines for failing to provide coverage until 2016. This gives such mid-sized firms an additional year to prepare health coverage for workers, and that delay adds to the one-year delay in enforcement of the Affordable Care Act’s […]