Compliance April 27, 2006

IRS Hikes User Charges

April 27, 2006 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has hiked some user fees including fees for letter rulings and determination letters for Employee Plans (EP) and Exempt Organizations (EO) for 2006.
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The first phase of increases became effective February 1, 2006, according to an AccountingWeb.com news report, and the second phase will go into effect July 1, 2006.

Two increases that became effective in February are:

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  • EP letter ruling fees increased to a range between $200 and $14,500.
  • EO letter ruling fees increased to a range between $275 and $8,700.

The increased becoming effective in July 1, 2006, include:

  • Under the revised and centralized EP determination letter program, fees for opinion and advisory letters and determination letters involving Forms 5300, 5307 and 5310, will increase to a range between $200 and $15,000 from the current range between $125 and $6,500.
  • EO fees for determination letters and requests for group exemption letters, which currently range from $150 to $500, will increase to between $300 and $900.

The IRS further notes that EP compliance fees and compliance correction fees under the employee Plans Compliance Resolution Systems (EPCRS) are not included in this procedure and remain at their current levels.

More information on user fee increases can be found in Revenue Procedures 2006-1 and 2006-8.

Benefits April 26, 2006

Tardy Workers not Fooling the Boss

April 26, 2006 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Thirteen percent of workers say they arrive late to work at least once a week and 24% say they do so at least once a month, according to a survey by CareerBuilder.com.
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HR.BLR.com reports that the survey found that one-in-five workers make up fake excuses for being tardy. However, they are not always fooling the boss. Thirty-five percent of responding managers said they do not believe the tardy worker’s excuse most of the time.

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According to HR.BLR.com, Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources for CareerBuilder.com said, “Thirty percent of hiring managers say they don’t care if their employees come in late as long as their work is completed on time with good quality. However, one-in-ten hiring managers say they would consider terminating an employee if he/she arrives late once or twice in a given year. One-in-five say a pink slip may be in order if an employee is late three times in a year.”

Primary causes for tardiness, cited by employees, were traffic (27%), falling back to sleep (11%), and getting kids ready for school or daycare (10%). Other reasons cited included forgetting something at home, feeling sick, and not being able to find the house or car keys.

In addition, the survey found that most tardies occur on Mondays, according to 64% of hiring managers surveyed.

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