With 2025 just a few months away, it’s important that small employers understand their group health insurance reporting obligations under the Affordable Care Act as they changed at the start of 2024. Before 2024, only employers that sent out 250 or more Forms 1094-B/1095-B and 1094-C/1095-C were required to file them online with the IRS.…
Lately there’s been a series of massive cyberattacks on software that organizations use to run their businesses, causing major disruptions to companies — and sometimes hamstringing their ability to operate. The most recent example is the Crowdstrike cyber-security software outage that affected some 8.5 million businesses, most notably airlines, which had to cancel thousands of…
The IRS has significantly increased the group health plan affordability threshold — which is used to determine if an employer’s lowest-premium health plan complies with the Affordable Care Act rules — for plan years starting in 2025. The threshold for next year has been set at 9.02% of an employee’s household income, up from 8.39%…
A common problem in the transportation industry is fleet managers failing to report accidents that their drivers are involved in, or the drivers themselves failing to report them in the first place. The risk is that if you ignore this problem, it’s not going away and will instead likely come back to haunt you, particularly…
One of the most underused employee benefits available is the “cafeteria” plan ― which can benefit both the employer and the employee. These plans allow workers to withhold a portion of their pre-tax salary to cover certain medical or childcare expenses. The benefits are free from federal and state income taxes, employees’ taxable income is…
Over the past several years, employers have seen a significant uptick in retaliation and whistleblower claims filed by employees and investigated by federal agencies. Often these claims are part of another complaint, either concerning workplace discrimination or harassment issues and filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or concerning workplace safety issues, which are filed…
As open enrollment is right around the corner, now is the time to make a plan to maximize employee enrollment and help your staff select the health plans that best suit them. You’ll also need to make sure that you comply with the Affordable Care Act if it applies to your organization, as well as…
Cal/OSHA has proposed new regulations that would incorporate California’s new workplace violence prevention law — which took effect July 1 — into Title 8, the set of regulations that covers workplace safety in the Golden State. However, the proposed rules add a number of new requirements that some safety observers say would be unworkable in…
As they wrestle with providing attractive but affordable health care benefits for employees, employers are trying a variety of strategies. A recent report from insurance brokerage Gallagher shows businesses are balancing workers’ physical and emotional health against ever-rising costs. There are many cost drivers in health care and insurers and employers are in a fine…
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued new guidance for preventing harassment on construction industry worksites. The guidance, while not binding, can be used as a template for construction firms to implement anti-harassment policies. According to the EEOC, the industry has an especially high incidence of harassment complaints, and “some of the most egregious incidents…