the payroll tide 1st quarter 2015 - hrapa.com · creased the deductible medical travel and moving...
TRANSCRIPT
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President ’s Corner by Melanie Kelly
Volume 9, issue 1
The Payroll Tide 1st Quarter 2015
Inside this issue::
President's
Message
1
Government
Update
2-3
Birthday’s
4
Membership
Update
4
Professional
Development
5
Community
Service
6
Word Search
7
2015 Board 8
I hope everyone had a successful year end for 2014?! The 1st
quarter of 2015 is already coming to a close and I hope everyone
has gotten a chance to start their plans for being compliant with the
new ACA rules that will affect our 2015 year end reporting.
If you didn’t make it to our February meeting we had a very informative pro-
gram on “How to Stay on Task-Protecting Payroll Data and More” presented to
us by Stephanie Salavejus from Pensoft. Our April meeting is going to be great
as Bill Dunn, CPP, the Director of Government Relations from APA joins us
and brings us up to date on all those legislative updates.
We received third place from National APA for our submission to the NPW
photo contest, and we successfully completed a 2015 COTY submission for this
past year. Thanks again to my board members for your assistance. National
APA Congress is being held in Las Vegas this year from May 5-9. If you can go
it’s a great experience and you learn so much, while also having some fun.
I want to again thank Terrie Weston for stepping up and offering to take over
as the Charitable Contribution chair. We supported “For Kids” in February and
in April we will be supporting Samaritan House.
Please join us for our bi-monthly meetings and earn those RCH’s and keep up
to date on all latest news and regulations that affect our payroll processing.
Enjoy the warmer weather and I hope your Spring brings you flowers!
Melanie
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t Update Government Corner-News You Can Use
By: Melinee’ D. Cody, C.P.P.
Visit the HRAPA Government News website for more important legislation and regulation resources. To
stay abreast on the constant legislative and regulation changes you can subscribe to one or several of the Re-
source Material listed on the Government News website.
Federal Updates
Business mileage rate increase in 2015 The IRS announced the new business standard mileage rate for 2015 will increase to 57.5 cents a ½ cents in-
crease from last year. The one-half cent change not only affect the standard mileage rate, but it’s also de-
creased the deductible medical travel and moving rate to 23 cents per mile. The Charitable miles driving rate
stays the same at .14 cents per mile.
Social Security, Medicare and Federal Unemployment rate and wage base The Social Security wage base for 2015 increased to 118,500.00 an increase from 2014 wage base of 117,000.
The Social Security rate stays the same at 6.2% for both employee and employer. There is no wagebase limit for Medicare tax. All covered wages are subject to Medicare tax. The Medicare
tax rate for 2015 is 1.45% the employer and 1.45% for the employee or 2.35% after the employee reaches the
threshold of $200,000.00 or more. The IRS announced there’s no change to the Federal Unemployment wage base of $7000.00 at the rate
of .60%. However, be aware there are still states that have outstanding loans from the federal government
and may not qualify for credit reduction avoidance later on this year. In November of 2015 the IRS will an-
nounce the employers in those states will be subject to a FUTA credit reduction.
IRS released new Form 941 and Instructions
IRS released the Form 941- The updated form is available on the IRS website, http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/
f941.pdf. This is a friendly reminder, effective January 1, 2014 the employer can’t claim the credit for CO-
BRA premium assistance payments on the Form 941. Once they filed their Form 941, they are required to the
Form 941-X, Adjusted Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return or Claim for Refund, to claim the COBRA
premium assistance credit. To prevent errors or delays in processing the Form 941-X, the employer must file
the Form 941 prior to submitting the Form 941-X. For more information, visit the IRS COBRA Questions
and Answers website at http://www.irs.gov/uac/COBRA-Questions-and-Answers:-Administration-and-
Eligibility. There are cases when an employer’s are entitled to the claim the COBRA credit, but are not re-
quired to file a Form 941. Then it is suggested that the employer file Form 941 with 0 entered on line 12 pri-
or to filing Form 941-X to process the claim for the COBRA credit. Form 941 Instructions available at http://
www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i941.pdf.
IRS released 2015 Circular Publications
Available on the IRS Publication website is the Circular 15 and 15-B for new information for 2015. Addi-
tional reminder information in Circular 15 pertaining to Same-Sex Marriage and Change of responsible party
filing, Severance payments are subject to social security and Medicare tax, income tax withholding and FU-
TA tax. Download the Publications from the IRS.gov website. Check out Circular 15-B for information on
Qualified parking extension and commuter transportation benefit, Same-Sex Marriage and Cafeteria Plans. Publication 15, The Circular E. It is now available on the IRS website. Publication 15-A, Employer's Supplemental Tax Guide
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Publication 15-B, Employer's Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits
Publication 51, Circular A, Agricultural Employers Tax Guide
The IRS released Form W-4 for 2015 The Form W-4 is used by employers to determine the amount of taxes to withhold from an employee’s
paycheck. If the employer doesn’t have an employee’s Form W-4 on file, the employer must withhold the
employee’s taxes at the highest withholding tables. You can find the Form W-4 on the IRS website at
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf
USCIS video Form I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) published a video on February 7th to assist em-
ployers on how to complete Section Two of the Form I-9. It’s a short video that gives you a quick overview
as what employers should know prior to having Form I-9 Section Tow. The website also includes Video for
completing other sections of the Form I-9, E-Verify and other related topics. Visit USCIS Videos at http://
www.uscis.gov/videos/video-form-i-9-employment-eligibility-verification-section-two.
State Updates
2015 State Unemployment Wage base
State Wage base State Wage base
Alabama 8,000 Montana 29,500
Alaska 38,700 Nebraska 9,000
Arizona 7,000 Nevada 27,800
Arkansas 12,000 New Hampshire 14,000
California 7,000 New Jersey 32,000
Colorado 11,800 New Mexico 23,400
Connecticut 15,000 New York 10,500
Delaware 18,500 North Dakota 35,600
District of Columbia 9,000 Ohio 9,000
Florida 7,000 Oklahoma 17,000
Georgia 9,500 Oregon 35,700
Hawaii 40,900 Pennsylvania 9,000
Idaho 36,000 Puerto Rico 7,000
Illinois 12,960 Rhode Island **21,200
Indiana 9,500 South Carolina 14,000
Iowa 27,300 South Dakota 5,000
Kansas 12,000 Tennessee 9,000
Kentucky 9,900 Texas 9,000
Louisiana 7,700 Utah 31,300
Maine 12,000 Vermont 16,400
Maryland 8,500 Virgin Island 22,900
Massachusetts 15,000 Virginia 8,000
Michigan 9,500 Washington 42,100
Minnesota 30,000 West Virginia 12,000
Mississippi 14,000 Wisconsin 14,000
Missouri 13,000 Wyoming 24,700
**For employers that pay at the highest UI tax rate of 9.79%, the wage base is $22,700.00
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Birthday’s April Jennifer Mitchell 5th Sarah Hargraves 6th
Lisa Stevens 14th Belinda Mullinax 15th May Bennie Popova 4th June Yvonne Smith 6th Michele Salak 30th
Chapter Celebrations.
We’re on the web
www.hrapa.com
Check out the
new and im-
proved
HRAPA website!
HRAPA Membership update
Our current membership count is 42 for 2015. Our corporate memberships
continue to grow - this year we have nine corporate memberships. We have an
additional corporate membership pending for Cox Communications which will
increase our membership by an additional three members.
We have been having some issues with our website billing new members
which we are currently trying to resolve. We hope to have those resolved
soon. Please help us continue to grow our chapter by sharing our website
www.hrapa.com and meeting emails with colleagues and students.
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Work For a Micromanager? Here’s How to Cope
Frequently peers over your shoulder. Constantly checking on your work. Keeping a too-tight grip on the
intricacies of payroll operations. If this sounds familiar, you may be working for a micromanager — and
you wouldn’t be alone. In a recent Accountemps survey, 59 percent of workers interviewed reported work-
ing for such a supervisor at some point in their career.
A micromanager has a negative effect on workplace morale and output. In the same survey, 68 percent of
employees who had worked for a micromanager said it dampened their spirits, and 55 percent said the poor
management style hampered the group’s workplace productivity. Here are three steps you can take to
maintain your sanity — and to manage your micromanager.
1. Gain your boss’s confidence Showing your supervisor you are dependable, capable and success-
ful when acting autonomously can go a long way in the fight to earn independence at work. Even small
acts — showing up early, paying extra attention to details and helping coworkers without being asked —
can help you gain a boss’s trust. A micromanager thrives on catching employees in the act of breaking
rules, so don’t give your boss any reasons for suspicion.
Keep your boss informed, early and often Good communication is key to keeping a micromanager at
bay. In other words, provide preemptive status updates, weekly summary emails and other check-ins be-
fore your boss asks for them. Doing so will help her feel more at ease with your time management and or-
ganizational skills.
1. Earn a positive reputation Making a name for yourself with other coworkers and managers can
help your boss begin to trust you more. Your good standing with other company leaders will help build
your reputation as a responsible and efficient employee, and that reputation may influence the microman-
ager.
As you gain the micromanager’s confidence, you may notice him or her starting to ease up on the minutiae.
Continue to meet your goals and communicate effectively, and you’ll be well on your way to better rela-
tionship with your micromanager —and possibly even to turning her into a macromanager.
Accountemps, a Robert Half company, is the world’s first and largest specialized staffing firm for tempo-
rary accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals. The staffing firm has more than 345 locations
worldwide. More resources, including online job search services and the Accountemps blog, can be found
at accountemps.com.
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Volume 9, issue 1
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Community Service
HRAPA Rocks
ForKids was our charity for our February meeting. ForKids helps homeless families. They have a pro-
gram where the kids come in and get help with their homework. They are given a snack when they
come in and are given dinner for their family as well. The hope is that by helping the kids with their
education we can break the cycle. The support at the February meeting was overwhelming! We provid-
ed 116 juice boxes, 264 snacks and some cash too—that will help get a LOT of homework done! Pat
yourselves on the back for a job well done!
Samaritan House is our charity for April. Samaritan House’s mission is “To foster personal safety, self-
sufficiency and personal growth in adults and their children through freedom from domestic abuse and
homelessness”. It seems you can’t turn on the TV anymore without hearing that some sports figure is
abusing his wife or girlfriend. Abuse and homelessness hits all ethnic groups and economic levels.
Below is a list of supplies needed at Samaritan House:
(No glass containers please)
Peanut butter, jelly, coffee, tea, juice, cereal, oatmeal, juice, baby food, mustard, catsup, mayon-
naise, sugar, flour, salt and pepper, canned fruit, corn, peas, green beans, tuna, rice, macaroni
and cheese, soup, spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, instant potatoes, baked beans, pancake mix, syrup
Other items:
Pillows, sheets (all sizes but mostly twin), towels, wash clothes, paper towels, toilet paper, plas-
tic utensils, paper plates, paper/plastic/Styrofoam cups.
We are Proud to be part of a group that supports our community and are always there to help others.
You guys ROCK!
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F C H S D V A C M E N T O L E
L E B C T O C E U F M A E M K
S A A Z P T A H L T W V I A T
A D F C K P C G D H Y F J Q P
L O A N S Y C I T I F O R P E
G L C H B O R X S D I R C H N
A E I O J L U I F I G A D K A
E X E M P T A N E B O N U S L
M C G E D C L N T H I R A G T
P G A R N I S H M E N T R W I
E M P L O Y E E S T Z C H A E
C S T A T U T O R Y E Y O G S
G T A O S Y U D E B I T F E A
M E D I C A R E K G A O K S L
A B O G T P H O A S D I P W S
S R N F R K P E R D I E M S C
O T I P S C F U T C Y J D S F
M A N K I A C C O U N T I N G
B H I R S B D G R O S S U P P
Payroll Word Search
Accounting Accruals Back pay Bonus CPP
Debit EFT Employee Exempt FLSA
Garnishment Gross up IRA IRS Levy
Loans Medicare OASDI Penalties Per Diem
Profit SSN Statutory Tips Wages
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2015 HRAPA BOARD
President: Melanie Kelly, CPP [email protected]
President Elect:
Vice President: Verlie Medford [email protected]
Treasurer: Jacqueline Kronstain, CPP [email protected]
Secretary: Lisa Stevens [email protected]
Membership: Cynthia Johndrow [email protected]
NPW Chair: Terri Weston, FPC [email protected]
Community Service: Terri Weston, FPC [email protected]
Education: Michele Salak, CPP [email protected]
Newsletter: Michele Salak, CPP [email protected]
Speaker Chair: Melinee Cody, CPP [email protected]
Historian:
Advisor: Melinee Cody, CPP [email protected]
Web Master: Melinee Cody, CPP [email protected]
Proclamations/Sponsor Chair: Stephanie Parker, CPP [email protected]