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Employers and plan administrators have more options now in choosing a way to reimburse the expenses their employees incur for lodging, meals and incidentals during business travel. The IRS in Notice 2012-63 issued per diem rates that are an alternative to the CONUS per diem rates the U.S. General Services Administration issues. The notice also […]
Employee expense reimbursement can be a complex topic. Employees have a right to be reimbursed for their work-related expenses, including business travel, training, equipment, materials and more, but where do you draw the line? In a CER webinar titled “Employee Expense Reimbursements in California: Your Compliance Obligations Explained,” participants were given the opportunity to pick […]
There is some persistent confusion over what the implementation of the health reform law means for health flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts. The short answer is that with one exception, employers and plan administrators must follow different steps for health FSAs and HSAs. Understanding these steps is crucial, because the time to prepare […]
Today was the final day for insurers to issue rebates for 2011 premiums (as required by health reform), so employers should know by now whether they got one. The next step employers face is passing the proper amount of the rebate on to employees. When rebates go to employers, the incentives favor applying the rebates to […]
With the Supreme Court’s June 28 ruling affirming health reform, its legal requirements on employer health plans are a green light. Plans therefore continue to face important requirements this calendar year. Fortunately, they’re the same ones employers have known about for some time. But if an employer has been holding off from comprehensive implementation, a […]
Employers may not have to adjust their qualified transportation fringe benefit programs after all — at least not just yet. A legislative provision that would have affected QTFBs by boosting the mass transit exclusion to the same level as that for qualified parking — the so-called “mass transit parity” provision — did not make it […]
If this bill becomes law, there will be higher dollar limits for eligible services for which employees can claim the dependent care tax credit. Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., introduced the Middle Class Dependent Care Fairness Act of 2012 (H.R. 5886) on June 1. Israel’s bill calls for: increasing the credit to $35,000 per year; increasing […]
Yesterday, attorney Julia Melnicoe explained some of the most common—and dangerous—wage and hour myths and misconceptions that California employers fall prey to. Today, the rest of the list—plus an introduction to a webinar next week you won’t want to miss. Melnicoe is an attorney at the San Francisco office of Sedgwick LLP. For #s 1-6, […]
The federal government seems to be fishing around for evidence showing that self-insured health health plans will siphon off healthy lives from state-run insurance exchanges (a cornerstone of reform). On April 26, the U.S. Departments of Labor (DOL), Health and Human Services (HHS) and IRS/Treasury issued a set of questions about the use of stop-loss […]
Employers with high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) that make it possible for employees to open health savings accounts (HSAs) have plenty of lead time to prepare for 2013. The IRS on April 27 issued Revenue Procedure (Rev. Proc.) 2012-26, which contains the HSA and HDHP limits for calendar year 2013. The HSA annual limits and the […]