With U.S. student loan debt totaling $1.5 trillion, employers are seeking ways to ease the burden of repayment for their employees and prospective employees. These have included signing bonuses and direct repayment of outstanding loans. Now, employers appear able to make matching-type contributions to retirement plans based on student loan repayments instead of on salary deferrals alone. On Aug. 17, the IRS publicly released a private letter ruling, allowing an employer ... Keep Reading »

Federal contractors subject to the Service Contract Act might appreciate knowing that the IRS understands that they must generally offer a cash payment to employees who decline coverage. While that would ordinarily be treated as making coverage less affordable and more likely to violate the Affordable Care Act’s affordability requirements, the IRS will not necessarily treat it this way; particularly in light of the 2017 executive order directing the IRS to exercise ... Keep Reading »

All entities, including governmental entities, are now potentially liable for penalties[1] due to overpaying employees. For-profit companies have been at risk for losing their tax deduction for excessive salaries, with publicly-traded companies subject to a specific $1 million limit that the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (Act) just made easier to exceed,[2] and certain nonprofit organizations have been at risk for “intermediate sanctions,”[3] but the Act also created a new ... Keep Reading »

Not only does the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act contain a tax incentive to promote the offering of paid family medical leave (FML), but it creates a lower-cost way to eliminate common complications that arise when employees are unable to continue paying health plan premiums while on unpaid leave. Tax Incentive. Specifically, newly created IRC 45S provides a tax credit for employers with an eligible paid FML policy. Generally, the policy must provide for payment of at least 50 ... Keep Reading »

On January 5, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced that regulations it previously proposed will apply to certain retirement and medical disability claims filed after April 1. This article focuses on a few practical considerations. Practical Comments. We recommend employers consider the following when weighing whether the new regulations will impact benefit plans: Normally, when we think of “disability claims,” we think of medical plans or short or long term ... Keep Reading »