| I love working with AmCheck! My account director is great. If I have a question she is right on it. She makes me feel like I'm her only client. No matter what day of the week or time, she is always there to help me. - Michelle S | More Reviews |
OSHA 300 Log
- Thu | 26 Jan 2012
OSHA 300 Log/Annual Summary Must be Posted by February 1, 2012
AmCheck reminds customers that their OSHA 300 Log must be completed, certified, and posted in a conspicuous place by February 1, 2012.
The log must be completed by any employer who had 11 or more employees at any time during 2011.
• Total the columns on the OSHA 300 Log. (If no recordable cases occurred, enter zeros for each column total.)
• Enter the calendar year covered.
• Enter the company name.
• Enter the establishment name.
• Enter the establishment address.
• Enter the annual average number of employees covered by the OSHA 300 Log.
• Enter the total hours worked by all employees covered by the OSHA 300 Log.
• For companies using an equivalent form other than the OSHA 300-A summary form, as permitted under § 1904.6(b)(4), the summary used must also include the employee access and employer penalty statements found on the OSHA 300-A Summary form.
A company executive must certify the log.
• Select a company executive: The executive must be 1) an owner of the company (only if the company is a sole proprietorship or partnership), 2) an officer of the corporation, 3)the highest ranking company official working at the establishment, or 4) the immediate supervisor of the highest ranking company official working at the establishment.
• Have the executive certify the log. The company executive must certify that he or she has examined the OSHA 300 Log and that he or she reasonably believes, based on his or her knowledge of the process by which the information was recorded, that the annual summary is correct and complete.
Post a copy of the log.
• Post a copy of the annual summary in each establishment in a conspicuous place or places where notices to employees are customarily posted.
• Verify that the log is not altered, defaced or covered by other material.
WriteChoice Product Launch
- Tue | 17 Jan 2012
AmCheck announces today the availability of a powerful new web-based, ad-hoc reporting tool: WriteChoice. This innovative tool provides AmCheck Client administrators and key decision-makers with valuable business insights by enabling convenient extraction of important payroll and HR data and empowering users to quickly produce customized, sharable reports. WriteChoice is a valuable asset for those who manage operations across multiple employer identification numbers, allowing decision-makers to gain an enterprise-wide or division-wide perspective. Designed to maximize flexibility, WriteChoice streamlines reporting functions and administrative activities and provides users with significant new exporting and reporting capabilities.
This powerful new tool greatly expands the addressable dataset to include labor allocation information and from/to reporting. The datasets are designed to focus on specific groups to make selection fast and easy, but all contain common elements to eliminate the need to join datasets. The new reporting tool also supports cross-company consolidated reporting.
WriteChoice enables users to save and copy reports so they may be shared easily. In addition, it supplies advanced sorting, grouping, totaling and filtering functionalities, all while providing control over grid styles, colors and fonts. WriteChoice enables production of professional reports that may be customized with company logos and features advanced graph production capabilities. Reports may also be output in a number of data formats, including PDF, Excel and comma-separated text files.
Contact your local AmCheck Account Director or Service Representative for more information.
2012 Minimum Wage Guide
- Fri | 06 Jan 2012
Numerous States increased minimum wage in 2012. For a complete listing by state Click Here
FUTA Credit Reduction
- Fri | 06 Jan 2012
2011 FUTA Credit Reduction
Several states have been identified as Credit Reduction States for the FUTA (Federal Unemployment Tax Act) tax, retroactive to January 1, 2011 and will be due on Federal IRS Form 940 by January 31, 2012. Employers in these states will be subject to a reduction in FUTA credit resulting from unpaid federal loans. Typically, employers pay federal unemployment taxes on the first $7000.00 in wages paid to each employee. Federal unemployment tax on taxable wages through June 30, 2011 was 6.2%. However, the IRS allows for a credit of 5.4% in effect making the rate .8%. This credit is allowed due to payment of state unemployment tax. When state unemployment insurance funds are depleted then states can borrow from the federal unemployment fund. The IRS requires the states to repay this money within 2 years. When this does not happen the Federal credit reduces by .3% each year until the debt is repaid, ultimately, increasing the Federal tax rate on wages paid.
Employers in these states below will be subject to a reduction in FUTA credit resulting from unpaid Federal loans.
State Credit Reduction
Arkansas 0.3%
California 0.3%
Connecticut 0.3%
Florida 0.3%
Georgia 0.3%
Illinois 0.3%
Indiana 0.6%
Kentucky 0.3%
Michigan 0.9%
Minnesota 0.3%
Missouri 0.3%
North Carolina 0.3%
New Jersey 0.3%
Nevada 0.3%
New York 0.3%
Ohio 0.3%
Pennsylvania 0.3%
Rhode Island 0.3%
Virginia 0.3%
Wisconsin 0.3%
AmCheck will be handling the tax payment by doing a one-time adjustment . . .
AmCheck is diligently working on our clients' year-end filings which includes identifying the additional FUTA amounts due. The additional FUTA tax owed for clients in credit reduction states, identified above, will be drafted with the quarter and year-end adjustments and remitted to the IRS in the appropriate time frame and reported as required on the 940 returns. For more information directly from the IRS Click Here
Labor Law Poster Update
- Thu | 05 Jan 2012
The National Labor Relations Board Dec. 23 announced that it is postponing until April 30, 2012, a requirement for employers subject to NLRB jurisdiction to post a notice informing employees of their federal labor law rights.
The NLRB regulation, issued Aug. 30, 2011, would require employers to post an 11-by-17-inch notice describing employee rights and to publish the notice on an intranet or internet site if the employer customarily uses such media to communicate with employees about rules and policies (62 BTM 273, 8/30/11).
The posting requirement originally was to have gone into effect in November, but the board moved the effective date to Jan. 31, 2012 (62 BTM 321, 10/11/11), stating that additional time was needed "in order to allow for enhanced education and outreach to employers."
The rule has been challenged in lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (National Association of Manufacturers v. NLRB, D.D.C., No. 11-cv-1629) and the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina (Chamber of Commerce v. NLRB, D.S.C., No. 11-cv-2516).
Judge Amy Berman Jackson held a hearing Dec. 19 in the District of Columbia proceeding and told NLRB lawyers that the legal issues "deserve more time" than the Jan. 31 effective date gave her.
Jackson held the hearing to consider legal arguments of NLRB and the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc., the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, and the National Federation of Independent Business, along with several small businesses that joined in challenging the NLRB rule.
Actively questioning lawyers on both sides of the dispute, Jackson pressed the challengers on their arguments that the National Labor Relations Act does not expressly give the board authority to require notice postings.
But the judge also questioned NLRB's authority to treat a failure to post the new employee rights notice as an unfair labor practice. "Aren't you amending the statute in the way they're complaining about?" Jackson asked a board attorney.
In a statement announcing the new April 30 effective date, NLRB said "postponing the effective date of the rule would facilitate the resolution of the legal challenges that have been filed with respect to the rule." (Source - BNA)
Attention AmCheck Client Poster Subcribers - 2012 State Labor Law Posters will be distributed in the next 2-3 weeks.
