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The maximum wage base for Social Security tax will be $128,400 in 2018, up from $127,200 in 2017, the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) announced. (Note: The original 2018 wage base announced on October 13 was $128,700; this amount was revised by the SSA in late November.)
The maximum wage base for Social Security tax will be $127,200 in 2017, up from $118,500 in 2016, the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) announced October 18.
Despite two transit parity bills introduced so far this year on Capitol Hill, Congress so far has made no indication it will extend the mostly non-controversial proposal to equalize the tax breaks for qualified parking and mass transportation and vanpool commuting expenses. Both bills were introduced in the House and seek to amend the tax […]
A bill to restore parity between mass transit and qualified parking benefits will be introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., she announced Feb. 10. The limits, dictated by tax Code Section 132, have been unequal since that part of the tax Code was written, although Congress several times […]
The federal government lowered the rates used by employers to calculate how much to add to the taxable wages of employees who use a corporate jet for non-business use, for the first half of 2015. The rates — known as the standard industry fare level, or SIFL rates — get an inflation adjustment every six […]
Only a limited number of employees may benefit from federal legislation that retroactively extended parity between qualified parking and transit benefits, based on new IRS guidance. Notice 2015-2 instructs employers on applying a retroactive tax exclusion to commuters who used part of their 2014 salary to pay for mass transit commuting expenses or received a […]
Which is worst for a participant’s 401(k) savings: (a) plan loan defaults; (b) hardship withdrawals; or (c) cashouts upon job change? It turns out to be (c), especially for young employees and about one-fifth of those in the lowest income quartile, the Employee Benefit Research Institute concluded in a new analysis. The effect from the […]
Thousands of 401(k) plans failed their recent IRS nondiscrimination testing and had to return excess contributions to highly compensated employees because of imbalanced retirement plan coverage, according to research by a 401(k) advisory firm. Almost 60,000, or about 12 percent, of plans reviewed were forced to make “corrective distributions” to HCEs in 2012, the latest […]
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, […]
How a company complies with health care reform should be determined by what kind of employer it is, how exclusive its workforce is, and how important its benefit package is seen as an aid to recruitment and retention. Only after that analysis should an employer look at whether gains can be made by, say, reducing […]