Effective September 30, 2023, Florida’s minimum wage increased to $12 per hour. The minimum base wage for tipped employees increased to $8.98 per hour.
The increase is for work performed on or after that date, and not based on the actual pay date. For example, if your weekly pay period is from 9/24/2023 to 9/30/2023, with a check date of October 6th, 2023, and then only one day, 9/30/2023 would be paid at the new rate and not the entire check paid in 10/6. Of course, your employees would not complain if you did.
PayMaster does NOT automatically update your employee pay rates to the new minimum wage.
If you are on our labor poster service, we will send you a separate email with the notice to print and post. This will keep you in compliance until we send you a new full poster later this year. If you aren’t on our poster service, you can download them here. Versions are available in English, Spanish and Creole.
Other 2023 minimum wage changes can be found here.
We have HR Professionals on Call for You.
PayMaster has a team of certified human resource professionals that can provide you with unlimited HR support for a flat $50 per month. Yes, a flat $50 per month for unlimited support from 8am to 8pm ET, Monday to Friday via phone, email or online. Our professionals will answer questions and provide guidance on any employee situation, write letters, create employment polices and job descriptions, create an employee handbook and much more. You can spend thousands alone on an employee handbook, so this is a tremendous savings and there is no reason not to have a handbook now. If you have a handbooks that hasn’t been updated since COVID-19, there is a lot your handbook could be missing.
Give it a try for FREE for a month and see for yourself. There is no long term commitment, so cancel anytime. Reply to this email and we will get you started today!
IRS Halts Processing of New ERC Claims
A flood of improper Employee Retention Claims has resulted in the IRS shutting down the processing of new claims until, at least, January 1, 2024. Any returns that were received by the IRS prior to September 15, 2023 will continue to be processed with enhanced scrutiny, which will likely extend their already-long processing time.
“For those people being pressured by promoters to apply for the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), I urge them to immediately pause and review their situation while we look to add new protections and safeguards to stop bad claims from ever coming in,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said. “In the meantime, businesses should seek out a trusted tax professional who actually understands the complex ERC rules, not a promoter or marketer hustling to get a hefty contingency fee. Businesses that receive ERC payments improperly face the daunting prospect of paying those back, so we urge the utmost caution. The moratorium will help protect taxpayers by adding a new safety net onto this program to focus on fraudulent claims and scammers taking advantage of honest taxpayers.”
When properly claimed, the ERC is a refundable tax credit designed for businesses that continued paying employees during the COVID-19 pandemic while their business operations were fully or partially suspended, due to a government order, or they had a significant decline in gross receipts during the eligibility periods. If your business was impacted by one of these two conditions and you have not taken advantage of this, then consult with your trusted tax professional who is experienced in the ERC.
Businesses who are eligible should not be discouraged by this processing moratorium. Since the IRS is not processing new returns, it will give them the opportunity to clean up their 600,000+ return backlog. The fact that the IRS is not processing should also not prevent a business from filing (mailing in) a return. Filing now will ensure your place in line for when the processing resumes next year.
Recently FedEx and UPS announced a holiday rate increase starting in October. FedEx’s holiday increases are October 2, 2023 thru January 14, 2024 and Information can be found here.
Additional charges for UPS begin October 1, 2023 and peak surcharges begin October 29, 2023, and run thru January 13, 2024. Information on these charges can be found here.
In addition to the holiday rate increases both companies have also announced that there will be a general rate increase of 5.9% in 2024.
We take pride in maintaining competitive pricing for our payroll solutions. However, due to these increases in costs, you will see fee increases that allow us to continue providing best in-class service.
