Expert Compliance Insights & Tips for Businesses

March 30, 2009

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Ouch, Now That Hurts: Returned Bonuses May Be Taxable!

A tax law doctrine known as "constructive receipt" could put those AIG employees who returned their bonuses in jeopardy of having to pay taxes on them anyway. Goes like this: Constructive receipt prevents people from gaming the system, say by performing work in late 2008 and asking to be paid in 2009 to reduce tax liability by shifting it forward. This is a no-no, but obviously it's pretty eas...

March 30, 2009

51 view(s)

None Dare Call These 'The Friendly Skies'

Spirit Air

Spirit Airlines will fly you for as little as $9 each way, provided you don't mind paying extra for choosing your own seat ($9-$20), checking in a piece of baggage ($100 for the third one), or drinking water while in the air (priceless). And if you work for Spirit at its Miramar, Fla., low-rent headquarters, you'll be expected to clean your own space, empty your own trash, and vacuum around yo...

March 27, 2009

24 view(s)

Not Quite the Pet Rock, But 'Layoff the Game' Fits the Times

Layoff the Game

Someone had to do it, so now we have an online game entitled Layoff to amuse ourselves with as we await our next unemployment insurance debit card refill (while applying online for nonexistent jobs). Not only do you get to lay people off (except for the bankers), but you can merge with other banks and even obtain a federal bailout. How soooo 2008-2009! I wonder if there's a cage for Hank Paul...

March 26, 2009

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Health Care Reform Stays on Fast Track

budget deficit federal budget health care

Things in the nation's capital get curiouser and curiouser everyday for those who pay attention to what's being said and done (and who aren't the ones actually doing the doings and saying the sayings and those who are supposed to report on them in the Fourth Estate). First, Senator Kent Conrad (D.-N.D.), chairman of the Budget Committee, shreds Barack Obama's budget by half (the discretionary...

March 26, 2009

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Sacre Bleu! Managers Held Hostage in France? | WWC

France hostage-taking unions

Let's hope American labor leaders don't read international news reports. Turns out that a new habit is taking hold in France in labor relations. To wit: When employees hear bad news, they hold their manager hostage until s/he changes the bad news. Police refuse to intervene for fear of violence. A manager of a French sbusidiary of 3M is, as I write, being held hostage after he announced a lay...

March 25, 2009

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Labor Movement Worries EFCA May Fail

EFCA Employee Free Choice Act labor unions

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, who in 2007 voted to invoke cloture on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), came out yesterday and said his vote will be "no" this time around. That leaves the Democrats--Labor's mouthpiece and sometime lackey--with 58 (59 if and when Al Franken arrives) votes to end a sure Republican filibuster. Unfortunately, 60 votes are required. There's another way to ...

March 24, 2009

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Deja Vu All Over Again With Health Care Reform

health care Hillary Clinton Hillarycare

Two admittedly left-leaning columnists, a married couple (he a pollster, she a lawyer), have produced a comparison of polling results then and now. "Then" refers to the Hillarycare hubbub in 1993-1994, and "now" refers to the Obamacare hubbub in 2009-?. Results are a bit different than you would expect if you listen to or read what our left-leaning media have to say about health care reform. ...

March 23, 2009

57 view(s)

Chinese Use Card Check to Unionize All PRC Wal-Marts

People's Republic of China Wal-Mart

I've written previously about the card-check union organizing provision in the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) now before Congress. It turns out that this is the same method, gathering signatures, that Chinese workers used to set up unions in every Wal-Mart branch in China. This was fairly revolutionary for the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which had been accustomed to being co...

March 21, 2009

45 view(s)

Business Group Offers Alternative to Employee Free Choice Act

EFCA Employee Free Choice Act

Starbuck's, Whole Foods and Costco have floated a proposal to level the playing field, as they term it, in union organizing. The group rejects two prongs of the proposed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)--the card-check and binding arbitration provisions--and keeps in place the current system of secret balloting. What they do retain from the EFCA is the provision for increased penalties on emplo...

March 20, 2009

43 view(s)

Top Ten States in the Foreclosure Sweepstakes

You can call this my corollary to the GovRegs blog posting on "Top 15 Companies With Cash on Hand." 'Cept this one ain't so pretty--it's a list of the top 10 states in terms of foreclosures. I'll list them in reverse order to save the winners for last. The number in parentheses represents the ratio of foreclosures per house in the state; for instance, 1-500 means one in every 500 homes is faci...

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