On April 25, 2019, the court in National Women’s Law Center, et al., v. Office of Management and Budget, et al., ordered the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) to collect detailed data (Employer Information Report or EE0-1 Report) for the calendar year 2018 on employee compensation and hours worked from covered employers (employers with… Read more
Today the IRS issued an update to its retirement plan loan correction program that significantly expands the errors that can be corrected without filing with the IRS or paying a filing fee. Most importantly, many plan loan errors can now be self-corrected. For example, if loan payments are missed but the maximum loan term (generally… Read more
Last week, the Georgia legislature passed the Georgia Hemp Farming Act (HB 213), under which farmers may obtain licenses to grow and process hemp. The definition of “hemp” includes any part of the cannabis sativa L. plant and all derivatives, with no more than a 0.3% concentration of THC. Under the federal 2014 Farm Bill,… Read more
On March 28, 2019, a federal district court struck down core provisions of the Department of Labor (DOL)’s association health plan (AHP) rules in a lawsuit filed by 11 states and the District of Columbia challenging the validity of the rules. The AHP rules attempt to expand the definition of “employer” under the Employee Retirement… Read more
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) proposed updates and revisions to the regulations issued under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) on Thursday that would expand overtime eligibility to more than one million American workers. Currently, employees with a salary below $455 per week ($23,660 annually) must be paid overtime if they work more than… Read more
In 2013 and 2014, several high-profile pension plans offered participants who were currently receiving benefits the opportunity to cash out their future annuity payments and receive a single lump-sum payment instead. Initially, the IRS endorsed these programs in a series of private letter rulings. However, in 2015, the IRS announced that it viewed cashing out… Read more
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday, March 4, 2019, that a copyright owner may not file an infringement lawsuit until the Copyright Office has registered the work at issue. In a unanimous decision authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the Court ruled that the Copyright Act’s requirement that a work is “registered” before a… Read more
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced today, Friday, February 01, 2019, that the opening of the EEO-1 has been postponed until early March 2019, and the deadline to file the EEO-1 data that covers 2018 is extended until May 31, 2019. The EEO-1 is an annual report that is required to be filed by all… Read more
On January 24, 2019, OSHA issued a Final Rule eliminating the requirement for businesses with 250 or more employees to electronically submit information from the Form 300 (Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses) and OSHA Form 301 (Injury and Illness Incident Report). Covered establishments are only required to electronically submit information from the Form 300A… Read more
On December 14, 2018, Judge Reed O’Connor, district court judge in the Northern District of Texas, in Texas v. Azar, struck down the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA). According to Judge O’Connor, when Congress eliminated the tax penalty for failing to comply with the individual mandate, it eliminated the justification that the ACA was a… Read more