On August 8th, President Trump declared that he was deferring the collection of the employee portion of FICA, a 6.2% payroll tax that funds retirement and disability payments to American workers. However, this amount would have to be repaid by workers in early 2021. Furthermore, if an employee leaves, the employer would be required to… Read More »September 1 Payroll Tax Deferral
I had a conversation this morning with Bill Alpine, Director of the Department of Paid Family & Medical Leave for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The DFML is developing the specific process by which a church or religious employer may opt in to the PFML program. The process will be outlined on the MassTaxConnect website after… Read More »Massachusetts Paid Family & Medical Leave update
Every employer is required to save various payroll reports such as IRS Form 941 and W-2s for several years. One church was asked to provide documentation of an employee’s compensation by month, thirty years later (!) because the former employee had applied for Social Security Disability and needed to document 40 quarters of eligible employment. Although… Read More »Saving Year-end Payroll Records
Historically, Friday has been payday — at the end of the week, employers would pay their employees for the week’s work. More recently with the advent of direct deposit and payroll services, many employers have switched to bi-weekly pay for hours worked through the previous Sunday. Does this work for the church? Yes and no.… Read More »Bi-weekly pay difficulties