#payroll
Payroll management, processing, and compliance for businesses of all sizes
A payroll operations guide to wage garnishment: how to calculate disposable earnings under the CCPA, apply the correct caps for creditor, child support, IRS, and student loan orders, prioritize multiple orders on one paycheck, and keep records that hold up under audit.
How Applicable Large Employers file Forms 1094-C and 1095-C for the 2025 reporting year. Covers the March 2 and March 31, 2026 deadlines, the post-2024 furnishing-on-request rule, the 2026 penalty amounts ($3,340 and $5,010 per employee), the new 90-day Letter 226-J response window, and the Line 14/16 coding errors that most often trigger IRS audits.
COBRA's notice scheme runs on five deadlines — 90, 30, 14, 60, and 45 days. Miss any one and a group health plan can face a $100-per-day Section 4980B excise tax, up to $110-per-day ERISA penalties, and private lawsuits. A practical guide for plan sponsors and HR teams.
Starting filing season 2026, the IRS will apply First-Time Penalty Abatement automatically for taxpayers with a clean three-year compliance record — wiping Failure-to-File, Failure-to-Pay, and Failure-to-Deposit penalties without a phone call or Form 843. Here is how the rollout works, who qualifies, and when reasonable cause is the smarter move.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act creates an above-the-line deduction of up to $12,500 ($25,000 joint) on FLSA-required overtime premium pay for tax years 2025-2028, with a MAGI phase-out starting at $150,000 single and mandatory W-2 Box 12 Code TT reporting from 2026.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act creates an above-the-line deduction of up to $25,000 in qualified tips for tax years 2025 through 2028, available only to workers in IRS-listed tipped occupations and phased out above $150,000 MAGI ($300,000 joint).
Section 127 lets employers reimburse up to $5,250 per employee per year for tuition, books, or student loan principal and interest with no payroll or income tax. OBBBA made the student loan provision permanent in July 2025 and begins indexing the cap to inflation in 2027 — here is how a small business sets up a compliant plan.
A practical guide to Section 132 fringe benefits — working condition, de minimis, employee discounts, no-additional-cost services, the 2026 $340/month transportation limits, and achievement award rules — covering which perks qualify as tax-free, the cash-equivalent trap, and how to document everything so the program survives an IRS payroll audit.
Section 162(m) caps a public company's federal deduction for executive pay at $1 million per person. Starting in 2026, OBBBA aggregates compensation across the IRC § 414 controlled group — including partnerships and LLCs — and the ARPA expansion adds the five highest-paid employees to the covered list in 2027.
Beginning January 1, 2026, SECURE 2.0 forces employees with prior-year FICA wages above $150,000 to make 401(k) catch-up contributions on a Roth basis—$8,000 standard, $11,250 for ages 60–63—with no pre-tax option. Here is exactly who is affected, what it costs in real dollars, and the steps to take before the first paycheck of 2026.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act made the Section 45S paid family and medical leave credit permanent, lowered the eligibility threshold to six months, and added a premium-based method that lets small employers claim 12.5%–25% of PFML insurance premiums even when no leave is taken.
For 2026, QSEHRA caps tax-free reimbursements at $6,450 self-only and $13,100 family for employers under 50 FTEs, while ICHRA has no IRS cap and lets any-size employer vary contributions across 11 federal employee classes—provided the 9.96% affordability test, MEC requirement, and 90-day notice are all met.
