Payroll Answer Book 2014

Payroll Answer Book gives payroll professionals guidance on what steps they need to take to comply with the laws and regulations governing payroll. The Q&A format helps you quickly and easily find answers to all of your employees' payroll questions.

From both a legal and practical standpoint, broad and deep coverage is given to:

• Payroll implications of the wage and hour law
• How to handle the federal employment taxation of benefits offered to employees
• Computing and paying payroll taxes
• How to handle garnishments and other deductions
• How to determine whether workers are employees or independent contractors
• What records must be kept
• What the benefits and disadvantages of direct deposit of employees' wages are
• How to treat sick pay
• How to handle a merger or acquisition
• What to ask when employees work abroad

In addition to answering the full range of payroll questions, the Payroll Answer Book contains abundant examples that illustrate necessary calculations.

The 2014 Edition of Payroll Answer Book has been updated to include:

• A recent change affecting the employment taxability of benefits
• How to complete the 2014 W-2 form
• Examples of typical benefits in kind provided to expatriates
• How the IRS has loosened the rules for FSAs
• An explanation of a privacy impact assessment
• Synopsis of a U.S. Supreme Court decision about paying for donning and doffing clothes
• When a new partnership will be held responsible for all prior payroll compliance of a terminated partnership
• Whether a typical expatriate has a different compensation package than an employee working in his or her home country
• Which states don't allow employers to take credit for unemployment insurance wages paid in other states
• What change was made to the 2014 Form 941
• Record retention needed under the Affordable Care Act
• Whether wages paid by a target's payroll agent appointed on a Form 2678 need to be located and aggregated with other wages of the successor employer for purposes of the additional Medicare tax
• How the IRS treats same-sex couples who are legally recognized in their resident state
• When the IAT format is required for payroll
• What the President has proposed for unemployment taxes
• Examples of payments to employees that would be considered IAT payments
• Explanation of a recent court decision in which the court disagreed with the state UI agency about whether there needs to be the same common management or control both before the acquisition and on the date of the acquisition transfer before a mandatory experience transfer is required
• Increased exemption amount for wages paid to domestic workers in 2014
• Number of states and territories that participate in OCSE's Debt Inquiry Service
• How final regulations will change which domestic employees are subject to overtime
• Why a company would need to compute a hypothetical tax for an expatriate
• An additional state participating in Memorandum of Understanding with Department of Labor and IRS to combat misclassification of workers
• New incentive offered to employees by pay card vendors
• Whether pay cards are subject to IAT requirements
• 2014 federal employment tax rates and wage bases
• Additional information that should be included in the data privacy policies and procedures of a third-party provider
• 2014 figures used to withhold federal income tax from wages paid to nonresident aliens
• How to handle data privacy and protection considerations when merging with or acquiring a new entity