Compliance

Altera Corp. and the Internal Revenue Service are battling in U.S. Tax Court over the semiconductor maker’s handling of employee stock-based compensation and a unit in the low-tax Cayman Islands.

A “selected list” of pending and resolved lawsuits involving racial harassment allegations offers a teachable moment about the need for sensitivity training, as well as what’s offensive, harassing and illegal.

The health care trust affiliated with the United Auto Workers named a former Stanford University official and Hewlett-Packard Co executive to manage its $54 billion in assets earmarked for retiree medical benefits.

In April, the Internal Revenue Service issued proposed regulations on collecting fees from health insurance issuers and self-insured group health plan sponsors for establishing the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund, as required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The fund provides funding for a new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. PPACA requires the Institute to conduct research to evaluate and compare health outcomes and the clinical effectiveness, risks, and benefits of medical treatments, services, procedures, drugs and other strategies or items that treat, manage, diagnose or prevent illness or injury.

Now that the high court has upheld all Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provisions pertaining to employers, the focus shifts to numerous compliance obligations and possible economic implications of fully implementing the health care reform law.

As I was thinking about a topic to share my "vast" knowledge and information with my benefit peers, it occurred to me just how much I don't know. If it's not regulations and politics yanking our chain, it's the financial markets undoing what we thought we knew historically about trends; it's our employee demographics changing; it's the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation changing rates and the Department of Labor issuing guidance; it's the vendor and consultant landscape changing with mergers or core business focus; and it's the evolution in financial products. So here are the many things I am not:

A former human resources employee who worked for Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities pleaded guilty to five criminal counts, including sending forms to the Department of Labor about people who were not employed by the firm, even though they were on payroll and provided benefits. He also admitted to filing false U.S. individual income tax returns. The charges carry a maximum possible prison term of 19 years.

A couple months ago, a client's management team asked whether I agreed with their existing practice of automatically excluding from consideration for employment all candidates with criminal records. I advised them that I could not bless such a blanket disqualification, and I counseled them about how to modify their practice going forward. …

Despite recent tax reform proposals, experts testified at a House committee hearing April 26 that cutting incentives for retirement plans would be detrimental to savings.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced in March that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee agreed to pay the agency $1.5 million to settle a potential HIPAA violation - the first resulting from a breach under the HITECH Act's (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) breach notification rule, which requires covered entities to report an impermissible use or disclosure of protected health information of 500 individuals or more to HHS and the media.

Employers around the country are waking up to a serious and unexpected problem with their health care flexible spending accounts. The health reform law enacted several years ago quietly limited these popular “FSA” benefits to $2,500 per year, effective January 1, 2013. But the express terms of the law conflict with the explanation provided by Congress, and many employers are scratching their heads trying to figure out when plans must be changed to meet the…

With the Supreme Court's ruling on health care reform pending, the fate of the Affordable Care Act remains largely uncertain. In the meantime, however, the law is still in force. The Department of Labor has begun requesting, through recent audit requests on health and welfare plans, that employers prove their plans currently comply with the Act. Is your plan ready? …

JPMorgan Chase & Co has been hit with a lawsuit brought on behalf of employees whose retirement holdings fell in value after the largest U.S. bank revealed a surprise $2 billion trading loss earlier this month. The defendants are accused of violating fiduciary duties to 401(k) and other retirement plan participants by including company stock as an investment option, hiding the stock's risk, and failing to move participants to safer choices.

At what point does clicking "Like" on a Facebook page result in a pair of federal complaints pitting employers against employees and raising fresh questions about the role of online speech? In recent weeks, two cases have come to light, each featuring employees clicking "Like" on Facebook and being fired for having done so.

Today, more and more participants are requesting hardship distributions from their 401(k) plans in an effort to make ends meet. While you no doubt want to comply with their requests, you don't want to do so to the detriment of your plan. It's critical to understand what the law allows and to review your plan's hardship distribution procedures in order to avoid the headaches that will result from impermissible hardship distributions. …

In a series of three notices, the IRS has signaled the approach that it may take on certain key issues arising under the employer shared responsibility, or "pay or play,” provisions of the Affordable Care Act and is seeking comment on these and other questions. All of the matters discussed in the notices will ultimately be addressed in regulations. …

Have a problem with federal employee benefit regulations? Write to the agencies that issue them. That was the message from the Department of Labor, Internal Revenue Service and Employee Benefits Security Administration at an International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans conference on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued its long-anticipated Enforcement Guidance on employer use of arrest and conviction records in making employment decisions. The guidance, released on April 25, 2012, is grounded on the premise that any employment practice that has a disparate impact upon a Title VII protected group is unlawful unless the practice is job related and consistent with business necessity. …

The retirement planning industry is asking once again for leniency from federal fee disclosure regulations that take effect July 1.

As a result of foreign ownership, it's common for U.S. employees to receive stock options from foreign parents that are subject to taxation in the United States.