Impact of Tax Overhaul on Employers

As President Trump readies to sign the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, employers can begin to prepare for several impacts of the Act. Aspects of this tax overhaul that will affect employers include the following:

  • Addition of a prohibition against deducting settlements — and attorney fees and costs involved in defending matters — involving sexual harassment or sexual abuse when the settlement includes a nondisclosure agreement.
  • Creation of a new paid leave-related tax credit, permitting eligible employers to claim a tax credit equal to 12.5 of wages paid to an employee during a qualifying family and medical leave.
  • Prohibition of certain deductions related to expenses incurred as a result of governmental penalties, investigations, not including amounts identified in the order as restitution, remediation or otherwise required to come into compliance.
  • Modifications, including suspension of some aspects, of the ability to deduct/exclude income related to the following:
    • Moving expenses,
    • Business entertainment expenses, including so-called “country club” membership dues and expenses,
    • Transportation fringes, like parking expenses, bus passes, etc.,
    • Food and beverages provided as a courtesy to employees at the employer’s facility for the benefit of employers,
    • Employee lifetime achievement awards,
    • Certain miscellaneous expenses previously deductible when they exceeded, in the aggregate, 2% of the employee’s gross income, including the employee’s ability to deduct for such things as a home office, union dues and licensing fees,
    • Compensation under $1-million for certain “covered employees” of a publicly traded company, including the previous exemption for commission- and performance-based pay, with limited grandfathering rules.
  • Addition of a 20% excise tax for nonprofits (including 501(c)(3) and (6)’s) whose five highest paid employees earn more than $1-million.
  • Changes to tax brackets with anticipated changes to tax withholding  commencing in 2018.
  • Repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate.

There are sure to be more lessons in this new law as it is analyzed. Employers should review this new tax law with experienced Benefits legal counsel and accounting professionals.

Please note the bold and italicized bullet points in particular warrant particular attention, not only of an employer’s accounting, compensation and payroll professionals, but also its Legal and HR departments.

Source: Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

DOL proposes reversing course on Obama-era tip-pooling rule

The U.S. Department of Labor has issued a proposed rule that would reverse an Obama-era tip-pooling rule, which has proven controversial since its issuance. As previously reported in this blog, the courts have split over whether — and the Tenth Circuit has joined the majority that hold that — employers need not comply with the tip-pooling rule if they otherwise meet the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage requirements. These courts hold that the tip-pooling rule is merely a condition of claiming the credit for tips against the minimum wage; if an employer does not claim the tip credit — if the employer pays at or above the minimum wage — then the tip-pooling rule does not apply. One part of the tip-pooling rule prohibits employers from sharing tips with any worker in a position that is not customarily and regularly tipped, such as dishwashers, cooks, etc. Thus, by paying tipped employees (e.g., waiters) at or above the minimum wage, without claiming the tip credit, employers are free to require a tip pool that is shared with other employees, even dishwashers, cooks, etc. This proposed rule would confirm this view in the formal FLSA regulations, in other words, that the tip-pooling rule only applies as a condition of claiming the tip credit. The proposed rule would codify the approach already taken by the Tenth Circuit.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi … a $1-billion hit to worker productivity?!

Bloomberg BNA published an article today predicting the much-awaited release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi might result in so many employees missing work that “lost productivity could exceed $1 billion.” In fact, the article reports if workers take “the entire day off” to see the movie, the impact will be closer to $1.4 billion. However, the article suggests the hit to productivity may net out against future productivity gains because “allowing workers to take that time off can do wonders for employee morale.”

Wonder what a wage-hour class (collective) action complaint looks like?

A group of employees recently filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Denver, Colorado, against DaVita Healthcare Partners, Inc., and Total Renal Care, Inc. Their complaint, which is publicly available in court records, lays out their claims and provides HR professionals with a chance to see what this kind of lawsuit can look like. Reminder as you review, the defendants have yet to respond to the complaint; therefore, the plaintiffs’ allegations are merely, just that, at this time, allegations, which are unproven. The plaintiffs’ allegations have yet to even be tested in litigation.

The complaint alleges violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which is the nation’s leading, federal wage-hour law.

It was filed as a class action, more specifically, a collective action. Simply put, the difference between a class action and a wage-hour collective action is this: In a class action, representatives can sue on behalf of a group of similarly situated individuals, who can then opt out of the class if they choose not to be involved. FLSA provides for “collective” actions, in which individuals have to opt in to join the class. Either way court approval is required to proceed as a class/collective action, and this Complaint signals the plaintiffs’ intent to seek such approval.

Here the plaintiffs describe their alleged class as a group called the “Trailblazers,” which they describe, as follows:

2. Plaintiffs and those similarly situated are non-exempt hourly employees of Defendants. Plaintiffs and those similarly situated are all located within a geographic area designated and defined by Defendants as encompassing the states of Tennessee and Mississippi, and parts of Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia, and are collectively referred to by Defendants as the “Trailblazers.”

3. Plaintiffs and those similarly situated in the “Trailblazers” zone are subject to the same illegal policy and practice of failing to pay workers for all time worked and failing to pay overtime wages. That policy and practice is based, in part, on direct patient care hours per treatment and the calculation of direct patient care hours for each facility established by corporate DaVita that reduces Defendants’ patient to staff ratios and require Plaintiffs and those similarly situated to work more hours for which they are not properly compensated.

They allege, as follows, that wages were not paid for all hours worked and, as a result, overtime is also claimed:

6. Defendants required Plaintiffs and those similarly situated to clock out for
their meal breaks. Plaintiffs and those similarly situated were/are required to perform work-related duties during meal breaks. Plaintiffs and those similarly situated were/are not paid for work-related interruptions that occurred/occur during meal breaks during their shifts wherein they worked more than five consecutive hours. Defendants failed to change Plaintiffs’, and those similarly situateds’, time records to reflect the additional time worked on behalf of the employer even when Plaintiffs and those similarly situated requested that their time records be corrected by management.

7. Plaintiffs and those similarly situated were/are not properly paid for other work-related duties which occurred outside of their scheduled shift hours and/or on weekends. Defendants failed to change Plaintiffs’, and those similarly situateds’, time records to reflect the additional time worked on behalf of the employer even when Plaintiffs and those similarly situated requested that their time records be corrected by management.

Allegedly compounding their claim for failure to pay, they also claim the employer “failed to properly maintain accurate daily records of all hours worked by Plaintiffs and those similarly situated as required by federal law because Defendants are not properly recording all hours worked, including overtime.”

What is sought in a class (collective) action like this under FLSA? These Plaintiffs claim “unpaid wages, overtime compensation, a declaratory judgment, liquidated damages, compensatory damages, punitive damages, costs and attorneys’ fees and pre and post judgment interest associated with the bringing of this action, plus any additional relief that is just and proper for Plaintiffs and those similarly situated under federal law.”

Again, it is emphasized these are merely unproven allegations at this point. Still, the complaint itself, being public, provides HR professionals an opportunity to see what this kind of case can look like.

Employers in New York City face potential for greater punitive damages

The New York Court of Appeals ruled in Chauca v. Abraham that employers face greater exposure for punitive damages under New York City’s anti-discrimination laws than under the federal anti-discrimination law known as Title VII.

The Court observed that existing law mandates that New York City’s law be “as a floor below which the City’s Human Rights Law cannot fall, rather than a ceiling above which the local law cannot rise.”

The Court then noted that New York City’s law is worded differently and, as such, it “requires neither a showing of malice or awareness of the violation of a protected right.” This means a lower standard than Title VII. However, the Court cautioned the standard should not be so low that punitive damages are available whenever a violation is proven warranting compensatory damages.

Punitive damages represent punishment for wrongful conduct that goes beyond mere negligence and are warranted only where aggravating factors demonstrate an additional level of wrongful conduct (see Home Ins. Co., 75 NY2d at 203-204 ). Accordingly, there must be some heightened standard for such an award.

As a middle ground, the Court articulated a new standard for punitive damages under New York City’s law: The plaintiff must prove “the wrongdoer has engaged in discrimination with wilful or wanton negligence, or recklessness, or a ‘conscious disregard of the rights of others or conduct so reckless as to amount to such disregard.'”

A dissenter disagreed arguing the majority had set the bar too low. The dissenter would have allowed punitive damages “whenever liability is proved, unless an employer has adopted and fully implemented the antidiscrimination programs, policies, and procedures promulgated by the Commission on Human Rights, as an augmentation to compensatory damages, and would answer the certified question accordingly.”

Source: https://www.bloomberglaw.com/document/X1OFI9SU0000N?

Turn on your radios!

The Supreme Court holds oral arguments tomorrow in Masterpiece Cakeshop. I will be live in-studio on 850 KOA Colorado’s Morning News, for a series of segments starting about 8:00 AM tomorrow morning discussing the case.