January 2024 Newsletter

https://www.hrxservices.com/so/d1OqEBEfr?languageTag=en

NEW YEAR - NEW REQUIREMENTS

Corporate Transparency Act: Action Plan for Upcoming Reporting Requirements

Back in August, our firm released an alert on the Corporate Transparency Act (the “CTA”), summarizing the reporting obligations and the important deadlines for entities that will be considered “reporting companies” under the CTA. This article summarizes Greenberg Glusker’s policies with respect to the CTA and actions that you can take now to prepare.

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Reports and Deadlines

Commencing on January 1, 2024, most entities formed by a filing with a secretary of state’s office (including corporations, limited partnerships, limited liability companies, limited liability limited partnerships, and statutory trusts) must file a report (the “CTA Report”) to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”), reporting certain information about the entity and the persons who own and control it. The initial filing deadlines are as follows:

• Entities in existence prior to January 1, 2024, must file the CTA Report by the end of 2024
• Entities formed during 2024 must file the CTA Report within 90 days of formation.
• Entities formed on or after January 1, 2025, must file the CTA Report within 30 days of formation.

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Once filed, a CTA Report must be updated within 30 days after a change to any information on the CTA Report.?There are criminal and civil penalties for not complying with the new rules.

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Helpful Resources

As you learn about the CTA, we’ve prepared and compiled the following helpful resources:

• Greenberg Glusker's CTA Summary
• FinCEN’s Small Entity Compliance Guide
• Full text of the Regulations

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What Can You Do Now to Prepare?

• Identify someone in your organization whose responsibility it is to learn about and manage the CTA requirements.
• Prepare organization charts for all existing entities.
• Revise all agreements between, among, or otherwise governing owners and senior executives of companies to require them to (1) obtain a FinCEN identifier and (2) provide the information in a timely manner so companies can meet their reporting requirements.
• Start to identify the “Beneficial Owners” of your companies.
• Be ready to have these “Beneficial Owners” submit for their FinCEN Identifiers as soon as FinCEN makes them available.
• Be patient, as an estimated 32 million companies are required to report next year.?There will be some bumps in the road.?We’re here to help make the process smoother.

Information on 2024 Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA)

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Source: HUB

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COLA Information

?Compliance Reminders

What are an Employer’s Labor Law Poster Obligations for Remote Employees?

The days of labor law posters in the break room are not over, but as so many employees are now engaging in remote work, they may no longer be sufficient. Employers have the same obligation to provide labor law posters to remote employees as they do for those on-premises, making conspicuous placement of posters in a physical location only part of the solution.

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Employers are increasingly asking, “Are emailed copies of notices or links to my company website sufficient to comply with Federal, State, City, and County requirements?”

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Do Electronic Posters & Notices Suffice?

Most laws and statutes with poster requirements were written before the internet was prevalent in the workplace and before remote and online work became a significant part of the employer/employee experience.

However, there is support from various agencies, including guidelines published by the United States Department of Labor, suggesting electronic notification is acceptable for fully remote employees - if certain requirements are met.

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In their bulletin for employers, the US DOL states, “Where an employer has employees on-site and other employees teleworking full-time, the employer may supplement a hard-copy posting requirement with electronic posting”. The US DOL goes on to outline a few requirements, such as:

• For posters where “continuous posting” is required, an email containing a PDF or link is not sufficient. Employees must be able to locate and review notices easily.
• Posters and notices must be available to employees without requiring them to ask the employer to provide the information to them. If an intranet is used to provide such posters and notices to remote employees, the intranet must also be a common and frequently used location for company information. Posting in a rarely used internal company website is not sufficient.

?States will generally follow precedents set by the federal Department of Labor or set by their peers, and there are already examples where states accept electronically distributed notices. Two examples are:

• California Pregnancy Disability Leave poster requirements state: “Electronic posting is sufficient to meet this posting requirement as long as it is posted electronically in a conspicuous place or places where employees would tend to view it in the workplace.”
• California COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave poster requirements state: “If a hiring entity’s covered workers do not frequent a workplace, the hiring entity may satisfy the notice requirement by disseminating notice through electronic means.”

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Electronic Distribution is Supported by the Legal Industry

The legal industry also supports electronic distribution of the applicable posters to fully remote workers. Practitioners specializing in employment law advise that the best way to comply with state and federal posting requirements for fully remote employees – and to mitigate compliance risk – is to use electronic means to distribute notices to individuals who do not frequent an office location.

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Proof in the Event of a Dispute

They say that if done properly, the business can use proof of the electronic distribution to demonstrate good faith efforts to comply with the relevant laws and share important information on employee rights as required.

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The problem with relying solely on an email or intranet-based approach (aside from the fact that it is difficult to manage and keep up with all of the required notices and changes) is that, in the event of a labor dispute, the burden of proof is on the employer to demonstrate that notices were properly distributed and employees were properly notified. This is supported by the National Law Review, which recently stated, “Employers may want to consider providing a manner for employees to acknowledge receipt of the posted information to ensure they are fulfilling their obligations.”

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ePosterService Assists Employers in Complying with Requirements, Including DOL Guidelines

With ePosterService(?), employers rely on an automated and intelligent system to provide mandatory labor law notices and posters to remote employees, based on their actual work location (not the company address). The patented notification mechanism and certificate of employee acknowledgment help employers ensure that they have properly distributed the notices AND demonstrate that employees have received, viewed and acknowledged receipt of them. Employees have their own account access, allowing them to visit the online service anytime to review applicable labor law posters. Finally,ePosterService(tm)'s web-based approach is a simple, low-cost alternative for companies that do not have a frequently trafficked intranet website.

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Not Legal Advice: While we believe this information to be accurate, it should not be used as legal advice. It is the employer’s responsibility to consult attorneys and solicit legal advice to determine the most appropriate solution for their business circumstances in the jurisdictions within which they operate.

ORDER POSTERS FOR COMPLIANCE

ACA Electronic Filing Requirements Expand

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Organizations filing 10 or more IRS returns of any kind in aggregate must file almost all required returns electronically.

Generally, an organization filing 10 or more returns or statements (previously more than 250) in a calendar year will be required to file electronically in 2024. The regulations also require e-filing of certain returns and other documents not previously required to be e-filed. Returns affected by the electronic filing mandate include partnership returns, corporate income tax returns, unrelated business income tax returns, withholding tax returns for U.S. Source Income of Foreign Persons, information returns, registration statements, disclosure statements, notifications, actuarial reports, and certain excise tax returns, among others. However, the ten-return threshold does not make electronic filing mandatory for employment tax returns, such as Forms 940 and 941. Filers must aggregate almost all return types covered by the regulation to determine whether a filer meets the 10-return threshold.

Review All Requirements

Required Notices Must be Given to All Employees of

Employer Notice Of Income Tax Credits

The act also requires an employer to provide written notice of the availability of the federal and state earned income tax credits and the federal and state child tax credits at least once annually. An employer may send the written notice to employees electronically, including via e-mail or text message.

WORKPLACE SAFETY & THE FLU

Workplace Safety and the Flu

This page includes information for workers and employers about reducing the spread of seasonal flu in workplaces. It provides information on the basic precautions for all workplaces, including additional precautions for healthcare settings. Getting a flu vaccine is more important than ever to:

• Protect yourself, your family, coworkers, and other members of the community,
• Make the flu less severe if you get it, and
• Reduce the burden on our healthcare systems.

Health and Human Services' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has?updated guidance?for protecting individuals from seasonal flu. Refer to this page for updates on the most recent seasonal flu vaccine. Each year, the vaccine is revised to protect against the influenza viruses that research indicates will be most common this season.

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OSHA INFORMATION

Minimum Pay Standards (COMPS) Order #39 Modifications Take Effect

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Implementation Date: Expected January 1, 2024

Expected January 1, 2024, the Colorado Overtime and Minimum Pay Standards (COMPS) Order #39 takes effect. Among other things, it:

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Updates the definition of a tipped employee for whom an employer may claim a minimum wage tip credit from an employee who receives more than $30 a month in tips to an employee who receives more than $1.55 per hour in tips over a workweek or other pay period permitted by Colorado law.

• Narrows employee eligibility for tip pools to include only those employees who perform significant customer-service functions in contact with patrons.
• Provides that certain activities (or a combination of multiple activities consecutively) may be excluded from compensable working time if they are one minute or less and other conditions are met, and

Adds tips to the types of pay that may be excluded from the regular rate of pay when computing overtime.

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Note: Labor law posters must be updated annually; the CDLE indicates mid-December to expect updates on state labor posters.

EPEWA - Notice of Internal Opportunities

and Career Progression

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Author: XpertHR Editorial Team

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Colorado employers must make reasonable efforts to announce, post, or otherwise notify all employees of each internal job opportunity on the same calendar day and before the employer makes a selection decision. Previously, this notification requirement applied only to promotion opportunities.

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Through July 1, 2029, if an employer has no physical facilities in Colorado and has fewer than 15 employees working in Colorado, all of whom work remotely, the employer is only required to provide notice of remote job opportunities.

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Within 30 calendar days after a candidate who is selected for a job opportunity begins working in the position, an employer must make reasonable efforts to announce, post, or otherwise communicate the following information to, at a minimum, the employees with whom the selected candidate is expected to work regularly:

• The selected candidate's name;
• The selected candidate's former job title, if already employed by the employer;
• The selected candidate's new job title and
• Information on how employees may demonstrate an interest in similar job opportunities in the future, including information on individuals or departments to whom employees can express interest regarding similar job opportunities.

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The employer need not identify a selected candidate in a way that violates the individual's privacy rights under federal, state, or local law or would place the candidate's health or safety at risk.

For positions with career progressions, an employer must disclose the requirements for career progression to all eligible employees, along with each position's:

• Terms of compensation;
• Benefits;
• Full-time or part-time status;
• Duties; and
• Access to further advancement.

Career progression?means a regular or automatic movement from one position to another based on time in a specific role or other objective metrics. https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb23-105

Colorado Legal Timeline

• Colorado Paid Family and Medical Leave Benefits Begin - January 1, 2024
• Denver, Colorado, Minimum Wage Is Adjusted for Inflation - January 1, 2024
• Colorado Lowers Overtime Thresholds for Agricultural Employees - January 1, 2024
• Colorado Modifies Pay Transparency Requirements - January 1, 2024
• Colorado Minimum Wage Is Adjusted for Inflation - January 1, 2024 ($14.42 per hour)
• Colorado Minimum Salary for Executive, Administrative, and Professional Employees Increases to $1,057.69 per Week - January 1, 2024
• Colorado Wage Theft Enforcement Fund for Employee Reimbursements Take Effect - April 1, 2024
• Colorado Restricts Age - Related Inquires - July 1, 2024