On March 18, President Donald Trump signed into law the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. This emergency measure directly imposes upon certain smaller employers new paid family leave and new paid sick leave obligations and expands unemployment insurance.
Besides dealing with immediate public health-related matters, the bill contains several provisions that will impact employers.
Here are the highlights of the bill that may affect HR, payroll, and legal teams:
An employer shall provide each employee with paid sick time to the extent that the employee is unable to work (or telework) due to a need for leave because:
Cap on paid leave and amount of pay: the paid sick time shall not exceed:
The bill provides $1 billion in emergency unemployment insurance (UI) relief to the states: $500 million for costs associated with increased administration of each state’s UI program and $500 million held in reserve to assist states with a 10 percent increase in unemployment.
This division of the Act covers tax credits for employers. Employers shall be provided with credit against the tax imposed on the employer for the payout of qualified sick leave wages under the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act. There shall be a payroll credit against the tax imposed for the qualified family leave wages.
This blog was originally published on Namely.com, a TripActions partner. Emmett Swan is a Sr. Manager, Payroll Compliance at Namely. He as over 20 years of payroll industry experience, holds the Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) designation, an active member of the National APA where he serves on the APA State and Local Task Force, Government Relations Task Force and Strategic Payroll Leadership Task Force. He is also a member of the New York Metropolitan APA chapter.