Payroll

Welcome to the Institute for Human Resources Payroll. Thank you to everyone for your participation and support. The Institute is committed to furthering the deploying and adoption of best practices across the Payroll vertical. The Institute provides an opportunity to bring together industry thought leaders in a year-long community that promotes best practices among vendors and HR Professionals with a series of research, webcasts, presentations, virtual events, awards and market research. The next two days mark the third virtual event for this great community. We have a very exciting event planned for you with many informative sessions covering the hot topics and trends in this exciting space.

This introduction to the event will give you an overview of the Institute for Human Resources certification program as it specifically relates to Payroll. You will be introduced to the Advisory Board, learn about the opportunity to become certified within the IHR and see who is speaking and their topics. You will be given guidance on how to chat online with colleagues and access the virtual exhibit hall. You will have the opportunity to ask questions as it relates to the overall program, prior to its commencement.

This virtual event introduction is not eligible for an HRCI credit.

Fringe benefits are an integral part of the total compensation package for employees in today’s workforce. When determining what fringe benefits to provide to your employees the first question that usually arises is “how are we going to do it”. For example, the company has decided to assist employees in their commuting efforts. You have decided that certain levels of employees will be entitled to the full-time use of a company car. You have determine that certain other employees, while not provided a company car, will be provided free parking for their own vehicle. While still other employees, such as the rank and file, will be entitled to bus passes or subway tokens. You do all the required work locating the best packages for both employer and employee. But your task doesn’t stop once the fringe benefit is provided. The very next question that must be answered before that employee starts that new car, pulls into the parking space or hops on the bus is---what are the IRS taxation and reporting requirements for this fringe benefit?

The Internal Revenue Code has strict guidelines on many types of fringe benefits that must be adhered to in order to avoid audits and penalties. This is especially true in the area of transportation fringe benefits. The definition of transportation fringe benefits crosses the spectrum from all of the types of benefits discussed above and may even include the time spent on a private company plane. And the taxation requirements can be just as varied—from no taxation and reporting under IRC Section 132 to the required use of algebraic formulas to determine the taxable wages. And that does not even address the requirements when reimbursing employees for the business use of their personal vehicle. In this 60-minute webinar we will address all these issue including examples of the math.

The following bullet points are covered in this webinar:
• What are the four allowable methods to calculate the personal use of a company car
• How to calculate the taxable wages for the personal use of a company vehicle using one of the four accepted IRS methods
• When an auto allowance is considered taxable wages and when it is not
• IRS 132 transportation fringe benefits including parking, bus passes and tokens and bicycles—when to tax and when not too—what are the limits
• Calculating the personal use of a company aircraft even if there is a business trip involved somewhere

Are you ready for healthcare W-2 reporting requirements year-end 2012? What about increased Medicare rates in 2013? And all those healthcare plan evaluations for ensuring that your organization is covered — better make your checklist now! Join Ultimate Software’s Director of Product Management Liz Bucko, and Product Manager Kellie Jones on October 15 at 3 p.m. for an overview of the Affordable Care Act coming in 2012-2013 plus what legislation to look for in 2014. From employer-sponsored healthcare to Medicare rate increases and health plan evaluations, here is what you need to be ready for the next steps of the Affordable Care Act rollout.
Even though the individual mandate is not effective until 2014, many employers are not prepared and will face penalties if they don't update their current healthcare offerings. And don't be fooled — even if most of your employees are part-time, your organization could be subject to penalties as well. Take an hour out of your day to learn about the updates, make a list of critical changes your organization needs to be aware of, and see what other companies are doing to stay compliant.
Ultimate Software is a leading cloud provider of people management solutions. The company’s UltiPro solution provides a comprehensive approach to managing the employee life cycle, including Web features for talent acquisition and hiring; onboarding; payroll; HR; online benefits enrollment and management; performance management and reviews, succession management; career development; business intelligence; real-time reporting; time and attendance; plus role-based access for executives, managers, administrators, and employees.

Web 2.0 - The Next Generation of Web Technologies
Human Resources and Payroll professionals are constantly delivering information to their workforces. New technologies have come into existence that could assist in that effort, but how do you learn about what is available and how it would work for you? Do you know what SaaS, Social Networking, Wiki’s, Blogs, and Mash Ups are? They are a moving target, as these technologies continue to expand and evolve; what should you plan for in the future?
This fast paced session will examine and help you understand these new capabilities, show how other companies have deployed them, and share some of the benefits and downsides of each. How familiar are you with SaaS, Social Networking, Wiki’s, Blogs, and Mash Ups? Do you know something about certain ones, but are concerned that others could be helpful in your business? Where do you learn about them?

This fast-paced session will examine and define Web 2.0, and what the common threads are across all the different capabilities. It will examine, in depth, Blogs, Twitter micro-blogging, Social Networking capabilities (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) Internal and External wikis, Social Bookmarking services, Internal and External Wikis, Social Bookmarking, Software as a Service, Mashups, Geolocation-based applications and more. Examples will be shared and discussed on how other companies/organization have deployed them. Each topic will include the Benefits and Downsides of using these technologies. By better understanding what they are, you can plan and deploy a strategy that is right for your business.

This is a very informative and entertaining session to attend!

How much time do you spend managing exception cases for your payroll? How do you identify payroll issues without safeguards in place to protect your employee's sensitive data? The payroll professional is the company's first line of budgeting and legislative compliance defense and a key factor in reining in department costs.
In this informative session, we will discuss the business case and benefits for companies of all sizes — from 30 employees to 3,000 — of implementing an improved automated payroll solution. We will help business leaders determine if they should outsource their payroll and when additional functionality becomes necessary. Included in the discussion we will cover the following important topics.
What is the current role of payroll and its importance in the company? What are the key steps to ensuring compliance and some risk mitigation actions you can take. What are the hidden and direct costs of payroll that may be impacting your bottom line and what key performance indicators should you consider? How do you analyze and diagnose your needs? What are the top five questions to ask when considering if you need to upgrade your system. Lastly, what are the newest technology trends including mobile, and how can and should you leverage these technologies in your environment.
Take away today's best-in-class tools and tactics, providing you with an accurate picture of labour costs as payroll expenses are recorded — as they are incurred, not when they're paid out. Learn how your payroll can make cost control and compliance a reality.

The Workplace Pensions Reform or Auto Enrolment as its widely known is a legislative requirement which is being phased in for all UK Employers over the next few years with the largest companies having to comply later this year (2012) and even the smallest of employers by April 2017 – no one will be unaffected by these changes.
For many years, indeed since the Pension Reform Act in 2007 the UK government has been looking for ways to improve access to pensions provided by employers and to encourage individuals to save towards their future.
During the 1970’s there were 19 working individuals funding a single pensioner, but as the population ages and people are living longer, with less people in employment this has fallen to just 2 individuals.
There is a widely held belief that the National Insurance contributions you pay during your working life are put aside to provide your state pension on retirement – this is simply not the case – national insurance contributions paid this year are used to fund the state pensions paid out in the same or following year.
The reforms are designed to make workplace (employer provided pensions) available to all (with few exceptions) even those who would normally be excluded, for a variety of reasons from joining their employers traditional pension scheme and to encourage individuals to save for their future, with employers contributing , and at a lower starting value making it more affordable.
Employers will obviously need to look carefully at the additional costs they will incur and budget accordingly.
This session will look at the legislative requirements, the dates when implementation is required and other considerations that employers and their pension providers need to consider.
We will look at:
•       Why employers need to provide a scheme, and what it must deliver as a minimum to be considered acceptable under the legislation
•       Preparation for Auto Enrolment
•       Explaining Pensions to the employees
•       The implementation and running of the scheme including registration
•       The essential (and compulsory) communications between the employer and employee
•       Contribution rates and staging dates
•       Reporting and regulatory requirements
•       Non-compliance and the penalties associated

Employers are charged with a range of employment tax reporting responsibilities related to merger and acquisition (M&A) activity or other transactional event (consolidation, restructure, etc. ). These responsibilities are often attached to significant penalties if they are neglected, particularly in the wake of SUTA Dumping legislation. However, compliance is not the only issue of interest for employers who have experienced M&A - there are also a range of rights associated with M&A, which open the possibility for material savings opportunities. For a variety of reasons, including the complexity of these transactions and the tendency for employment tax issues to slip between the cracks during the limited time window during a transaction, employers are often leaving money sitting unclaimed following M&A activity.

This presentation is going to overview the current poor health of the employment tax system, and how this is impacting the agencies processing and audit of M&A events. We are also going to talk about “Section 252” UI Integrity legislation included in the Tax Adjustment Assistance Extension Act of 2011 (TAAEA), and how it will affect employers and hopefully restore health (and lower tax rates) to the SUI systems. Then we will give attention to the SUTA Dumping Prevention Act and the QETP “Questionable Employment Tax Practices” initiative.

Following that, we will get into the nuts and bolts of required employment tax reporting for M&A, including change of control, successor determination, and transfer of UI experience. These items are critical not only to stay compliant, but also to hopefully reduce an employer’s tax burden. Other items we will cover include wage-base carryforward, the statute of limitations on prior M&A, tax account evaluations, and the benefits of conducting a retrospective review on prior transactions.

In closing, we will consider advance planning for future transactions, including timing, which details to request of prospects, and negotiating payroll transitions. Case studies of leading employers will be provided to get an idea of representative savings.

NOTE: *Participate in the Q&A session and be entered in a raffle to win a Microsoft Surface Tablet on behalf of Ross Henderson and        Employment Tax Specialists!