Archive for December, 2011

NLRB POSTER REQUIREMENT

Posted in Legislative Updates on December 9th, 2011 by dslivinski – Comments Off

 As reported to you in the November PIPELINE, the National Labor Relations Board postponed the rule requiring nearly all employers to notify employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act (whether or not the existing workforce is unionized) with a new Labor Law Poster.  The original deadline to display the poster was November 14, 2011.  

The text of this required Poster can be found on our website (www.rglconsultants.com) under the heading of “Postings”.

The new compliance effective date of the rule is January 31, 2012.

Application of Domestic Partner Benefits

Posted in Labor Laws on December 9th, 2011 by dslivinski – Comments Off
 

An employee’s domestic partner does not qualify as a “spouse” of the employee for purposes of the Internal Revenue Code.  This is based on the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which provides that “the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife”.

 Consequently, tax-favored benefits from Flexible Spending Accounts or Health Savings Accounts cannot be provided to domestic partners.  Whether or not state laws apply to self funded plans is immaterial for tax purposes.

In companies that provide health care benefits to domestic partners (whether self-funded or insured), employees are taxed on the amount by which the fair market value of health coverage for the domestic partner exceeds the amount, if any, paid after-tax by the employee for that coverage. 

Can Refusing to Hire The Unemployed be Considered Unlawful?

Posted in General on December 9th, 2011 by dslivinski – Comments Off

Earlier this year the EEOC conducted investigative hearings on whether unemployed could be a protected class under Title VII.  The stated concern is that statistics bear out that the unemployed population is disproportionately composed of African Americans, Hispanics, Older Workers, and the Disabled.  The reasoning of the EEOC is that because each of these categories is a protected class, by factoring in an applicant’s status as unemployed, or by having a blanket policy of not considering the unemployed for job openings, a company would be acting unlawfully discriminatory. read more »