Employee-Shareholders, Reasonable Compensation And Employment Taxes

You may have read last week that Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee announced they had reached a deal on a budget resolution that will enable them to bypass Senate Republicans on the way to enacting most of the “social infrastructure” programs called for under the President’s American Families Plan.[i] Significantly, after the announcement, Senator Manchin, who is not a member of the Committee, indicated he would not stand in the way of the budget resolution, thereby practically assuring its passage and the start of the reconciliation budget process. READ MORE

McDonald's, Uber, Lyft forced to get creative to lure workers amid the labor crunch

A white hot economy has created staffing shortages across an increasingly wide range of sectors— prompting some employers to dangle higher wages and creative bonuses to lure badly needed workers into the fold.

U.S. leisure and hospitality jobs, which sustained the brunt of COVID-19 related losses, have spiked in recent months. Those positions accounted for more than half of May’s employment gains, according to the Labor Department’s monthly report.  READ MORE

CEOs made 299 times more than their average workers last year

The difference between CEO and median employee pay grew in 2020 despite the Covid pandemic and ongoing relief efforts.

The average S&P 500 company CEO made 299 times the average worker's salary last year, according to AFL-CIO's annual Executive Paywatch report. Executives received $15.5 million in total compensation on average, marking an increase of more than $260,000 per year over the past decade. At the same time, the average production and nonsupervisory worker in 2020 earned $43,512, up just $957 a year over the past decade. READ MORE

Some CEOs took a pay cut in 2020. Yet they wound up earning more

As the financial blow of the pandemic became a reality in the spring of 2020, Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. furloughed thousands of workers and eliminated 2,100 corporate positions.

The cuts also appeared to hit the C-suite: Chief Executive Christopher Nassetta opted to forgo his entire base salary for the rest of the year, and five other top executives cut their base salary by 50% for four months. READ MORE

Nope, tech salaries aren’t booming like you think they are

A nervous startup founder once confided in me that he just signed a compensation package for a software developer that was twice as rich as his own. The narrative of the pricey tech team is now in the popular imagination. Recent data show that narrative may be outdated.

To many, growth in tech salaries, especially among coveted engineers, has appeared to be nothing short of unrelenting for the last 20 years. For one, salaries have proven fairly recession proof since the 1990s. As software eats the world, the supply of experienced engineers hasn’t kept apace. READ MORE

5 key steps to negotiating a better salary (and what to avoid)

By now you’ve probably heard a lot about about the Great Resignation that’s upon us. According to a study conducted by Microsoft, 41% of workers are contemplating leaving their current job this year. If you’re part of this group, now is a great time to sharpen your negotiating skills, as settling on a competitive salary is a critical final step of the job-search process. Even if you plan on staying at your current workplace for the foreseeable future, the job market might present the perfect opportunity to negotiate a raise.

After all, no matter if you’re a seasoned professional or a recent college grad eager for your first job offer, knowing how to negotiate your salary is vital. Here’s how to get this sometimes-awkward conversation right: READ MORE

Here's What To Know About Hiring Incentives

With a record 9.3 million jobs open in the U.S. as of April, and a workforce in no hurry to get back to work, a growing number of employers are looking to hiring bonuses to fill their ranks. Long a tradition on Wall Street, sign-on bonuses are rare in low-wage work such as fast food, warehousing and food delivery. Now, as the economy has picked up, hiring bonuses are everywhere.

On the jobs site Indeed.com, postings advertising some kind of hiring incentive have more than doubled since last July, according to economist AnnElizabeth Konkel of the Indeed Hiring Lab. Searches for terms such as "hiring bonus" have also doubled, indicating job seekers are intrigued. READ MORE

COVID Related Wage Increases Includible In Regular Rate In FLSA Overtime Case

I have blogged many times about cases where relatively small amounts of compensation, bonus type compensation, are not included when an employer calculates the regular rate for overtime and a class action ensues. Now, this is happening with COVID-related bonuses and extra monies. A recent example is a case where a group of workers have charged that COVID compensation increases were not added into their regular rates. The case is entitled Sanchez v. Gold Standard Enterprises Inc., and was filed in federal court in the Northern District of Illinois. READ MORE

IRS Updates Audit Guide for Nonqualified Plans

The IRS recently updated its Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Audit Techniques Guide. The updated June 2021 Guide (the “2021 Guide”) replaces the previous version published in June 2015 (the “2015 Guide”), and provides a notable expansion of the details surrounding the legal standard applied in reviewing Nonqualified Deferred Compensation (“NQDC”) plans, with an increased emphasis on Internal Revenue Code (“Code”) section 409A (“Section 409A”). READ MORE

What Happens to Deferred Compensation If I Quit My Job?

A deferred compensation plan is a plan in which employees defer part of their compensation until a later date. Usually, the date when the additional funds are disbursed to the employee is the date of retirement, although some plans enable flexibility for major expenses like children's college or buying a house.

In many circumstances, deferred compensation plans offer certain tax benefits. Here’s what happens to your deferred compensation if you quit your job before your expected retirement date. READ MORE

McDonald’s owners offer tuition, child care to lure burger flippers

McDonald’s Corp. owners are adding emergency child care and other benefits, as many U.S. restaurants are struggling to hire enough workers to run their businesses.

U.S. franchisees of the burger giant aim to boost hourly pay, give workers paid time off and help cover tuition costs to draw enough workers and improve the Golden Arches’ image as an employer. McDonald’s corporate parent said it is making a multimillion-dollar investment to back the franchisee efforts. Franchisees own 95% of the chain’s roughly 13,450 U.S. stores. READ MORE

Business Strategy and Compensation Alignment with a Post-COVID Lens

COVID-19 and the ensuing pandemic produced the largest global economic shock and business transformation period of our lifetimes. And while there were some companies that benefited from the situation, for many others the virus painfully exposed material weaknesses in their business.

We’ve experienced wholesale changes in how work gets done. For workers who could work remotely, there was a pivot to working from home. In fact, Pearl Meyer’s On Point Survey "Work From Home Policies and Practices" found that the work-from-home model may become permanent for many companies. Respondents indicated they expect a third of their total United States-based workforces will continue to work remotely. An interesting lesson here is just how quickly — and seamlessly, for many — this pivot was executed; it happened in a fraction of the time most of us would have thought possible. READ MORE

More Companies Use DE&I as Executive Compensation Metric

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) figures into an increasing number of executive pay programs. But these programs typically are annual bonuses rather than long-term incentives, which lessens their impact.

"In the 12-month period to Sept. 30, 2018, 51 companies in the S&P 500 included a diversity metric in their compensation program. In the 12-month period to Feb. 1, 2021, that number had nearly doubled to 99 companies," according to Glass Lewis, a governance solutions firm, in its report, Racial & Ethnic Diversity in the Boardroom. READ MORE

How some companies play ‘fast and loose’ with executive benefits

The Trump Organization and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, pleaded not guilty to tax crimes on Thursday. Experts say the illegal practices the government alleges occurred may be more common among certain types of companies.

The indictment says the Trump Organization and Weisselberg skirted IRS rules by failing to report so-called “fringe benefits,” a form of employee compensation. READ MORE

What Does Supreme Court Ruling Mean for College Athlete Compensation?

On June 21, the Supreme Court ruled against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) by declaring the organization is violating antitrust laws, a move that will heavily influence college sports for years to come. 

In The National College Athletic Association vs. Alston, the justices voted 9-0 to uphold the lower courts’ ruling that the NCAA can no longer dictate limits on education-related compensation.  READ MORE

How to Integrate ESG into Compensation Programs

On June 16, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1187 (the “Corporate Governance Improvement and Investor Protection Act”), which would require the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) to establish rules requiring public companies to disclose certain ESG metrics, including metrics related to climate, board diversity, and employee management and welfare practices. READ MORE