Crowd Funding / SB 1175/April 1 Discrimination & Harassment Rules

Yesterday Mark, Lori and I testified  at the Assembly Banking Committee on 2178, Small Business California ‘s Crowd Funding bill. It passed 11 to  1 and now goes to the  Assembly Judiciary Committee.

Small Business California will be sponsoring SB 1175[Mendoza].  This is a common sense bill that will  require medical bills from physicians  be submitted within 12 months of treatment for a workers’ compensation injury. FYI, Medi-Cal has a 6 month limitation during which it will accept medical bills. Medicare has a one year limitation.
SB1175 will provide for greater efficiency and transparency in the payment of a physician’s workers’  compensation  medical billing.

See below another requirement of businesses. Note this is for businesses with 5 or more employees. Thank you Dennis for sending.

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188


Hi Scott –

Everything an employer needs to know and access to what they need is here (article from the CEA April newsletter). Also, for a better understanding, consider signing up for the ½ webinar, link below. It’s free, and I’m going to do it myself.

Feel free  to pass this on…. Based on the number of calls and emails I’m getting a lot of employers aren’t sure what to do.

My best,

 

New Discrimination & Harassment Rules, April 1

No foolin’, big changes are required for California employers on April 1st! The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) recently revised the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) regulations to protect more employees. A Highlight of the Changes: 1. All employers with 5 or more employees are required to have a written anti-harassment, discrimination and retaliation policy which they must give to all employees. 2. Policies must prohibit unlawful harassment, discrimination and retaliation; contain a complaint process that allows employees to lodge a complaint to someone other than a direct supervisor; must state that confidentiality will be maintained throughout the complaint investigation to the extent possible; list all protected groups under the FEHA; tell supervisors to report all complaints to a company representative; and specify that anyone who complains of violations will not suffer retaliation. 3. If more than 10% of the employees in a given location “speak” a language other than English, employers must translate the policy into those languages. 4. Addition and definition of new protected classes of gender expression (a person’s gender-related appearance or behavior, whether or not associated with the person’s sex at birth), gender identity (a person’s identification as male, female, a gender different from the person’s sex at birth, or transgender), sex stereotype (an assumption about a person’s appearance or behavior, or ability or inability to perform certain kinds of work based on a myth, social expectation, or generalization about the individual’s sex), and transgender (a term that refers to a person whose gender identity differs from the person’s sex at birth). 5. Unpaid interns, volunteers and independent contractors are protected by the FEHA. 6. Transgender persons are now included as an eligible female employee disabled by pregnancy. 7. Employers may not discriminate against an applicant or employee because he or she holds or presents a driver’s license that can be issued to undocumented persons. 8. Notice A about employees’ FEHA rights and obligations regarding pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions has been changed (see #4 below). Employer Checklist: 1. If you don’t have a written policy, you will need to develop one. 2. If you have a written policy, ensure it includes all of the required elements listed above. 3. CEA has developed a new sample policy for your convenience. Use this policy in place of your old policy. 4. Poster Change: The new regulations change the language in the current pregnancy disability leave poster “Your Rights and Obligations as a Pregnant Employee.” Employers must either purchase a new poster or download and print out the amended posting and pin it up next to your 2016 Labor Law Poster. 5. Your new/updated policy must be distributed to all employees, with a signed acknowledgment of receipt, on or before April 1, 2016. For more information on this topic, See Counsel’s Corner. Join us for a FREE 30 minute webinar on April 7th from 12:00-12:30pm Click here to register now We’ll review the new FEHA regulations going into effect. Go to the events calendar on our website to register now! Guest Attorney: Peter Z. Stockburger, Dentons US, LLP.

Dennis Pufpaf
California Employers Association | Regional Director
800.399.5331 | dpufpaf@employers.org| www.employers.org



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Clarification on Minimum Wage

Yesterday I sent to you information on the minimum wage legislation. I want to clarify one point I made, that was how the indexing for inflation works. First, no indexing will apply until $15 per hour wage is hit. That will be 2022 for businesses with more than 25 employees and 2023 for businesses with 25 employees or less.

According to Governor's fact sheet, which I received yesterday, the indexing is not unlimited, but is capped at  3.5%.  For your information, the inflation rate since 1970 is:

!970 to 1079 - 7.25 %

!980 to 1989- 5.82%

1990 to 1999- 3.08%

2000 -2009-2.54%

2010 -2015- 1.86%

Keep in mind this may not be the case if you have a local minimum wage law. For example, in SF there is no cap.

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188 

Minimum Wage

You are all aware I am sure of the minimum wage legislation in Sacramento. To recap,
businesses with more than 25 employees will see the minimum wage increase by 50 cents in 2017 and 2018 and then starting in 2019 one dollar per year until it hits $15 in 2022. It then will go up each year based on the cost of living adjustment[COLA].
Businesses with 25 employees or less will not have the 50 cent increase in 2017 but will then see a 50 cent increase in 2018 and 2019 and then see a $1 increase until it hits $15 in 2023. It will then go up annually by the COLA.
The governor can review this if there is an economic downturn.
It should be noted that a local government can impose a faster increase and can increase to higher than $15. Most likely this would go on the local ballot but I believe it could be done legislatively.
There was discussion to not allow the Cost of Living increase and to try to have the  state pre-empt local governments from passing their own minimum wage laws .  Both of these provisions were  rejected.
What do you think? Are you concerned about the COLA? Remember the Jimmy Carter years when COLA was in the double digits? To be fair however, the COLA has been much lower the last few years, well below 5%.
What do you think? Will this impact your business?

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188 

New Posting Requirement for California Businesses

April 1 all businesses with 5 or more employees will be required to post  information about the rights and obligations of pregnant  employees. Please see link below for the poster. This poster has been created by the California Fair Employment and Housing Council.

http://www.dfeh.ca.gov/res/docs/Publications/Brochures/2016/DFEH-100-20%20(04-16).pdf

I want to thank the California  Employers Association for letting me know about this.

I just put this up in my business and my wall is  getting pretty full of required posters from governmental agencies.

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188 

SB/DVBE Advocates

Did you know there are literally hundreds of Small Business Advocates in state agencies. See below.

Were any of you aware of this information? Have any of you ever contacted any of the Advocates? I have eliminated the attachment as you can get information by clicking on link.

Thanks Jesse.

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188 

  

Hi Scott, this is a good page to share with your small businesses - http://www.dgs.ca.gov/pd/Programs/OSDS/advocate.aspx.  This page which is maintained by CA Department of General Services explains the role of the Small Business/Disadvantaged Veteran Business Enterprise and also has the link to the Advocate contacts, which I have also attached.   For small business owners looking to connect with a state agency, often the best place to start is with their advocate.  Otherwise they can just contact our office! 

Thanks!

Jesse

Jesse Torres, Deputy Director, Small Business Advocate

California Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz)

300 South Spring Street, Suite 16701

Los Angeles, CA 90013

Office: (213) 620-6011

Mobile: (818) 486-0425

Email: jesse.torres@gov.ca.gov

Assembly Committee on Jobs, Economic Development and the Economy Hearing

I attended the hearing yesterday of the JEDE committee and got a good sense of what Go Biz is doing for small business.  A lot of information was imparted  and  I want to keep this email short so I just picked out a couple of things I thought you would be interested in.

The state gave the SBDCs $2 million and the SBA gave them $2 million and this was used to obtain over $200 million in capital  for  small businesses around the state . The state and SBA have done the same this year and they are about halfway through the year and have generated $94 million this year.

The business  portal opened in July last year. This provides information on business navigation,  a  service desk, permit assistance, Financial assistance and quick start guide. It also has information on International Trade and a California Tax Center.  Go to www.businessportal.ca.gov.

There was also mention of GoBiz trying to help with California regulations. Not a lot of information here but something to watch.

Panorea Avdis has done a great  job as Director and is making every effort to have Go Biz reach out to  businesses around the state. Jesse Torres, the Small Business Advocate, is also working hard to reach out to small businesses and he has set up quarterly meetings with a large number of stakeholders including Small Business California. He has had two meetings  so far and it is a good opportunity to hear about what he is doing and hear from small business leaders about issues that affect California small businesses. He also indicated he had done about 40 meetings  with small businesses around the state. He has been in his position less than a year. If you have an issue contact him at Jesses.Torres@Gov.CA.Gov

Small Business California’s crowd funding AB2178 does not have a date for its first committee stop { Assembly  Business and Professions } but we are adding more and more associations to our growing list of supporters. We now have about 25 associations signing onto a support letter. We have not only small business associations but a few large business associations. If you want a copy of letter let me know.


Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188 

Jobs,Economic Development and the Economy[JEDE] Committee/Workers Compensation

On the 15th of March, the JEDE committee will be holding a hearing and is looking for input. One of the sections on the agenda is Small Business Assistance including the Office of the Small Business Advocate and Small Business Finance Center. This is under the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development [Go-Biz] Do you know about Go-Biz? Is it effective? Do you know about the Small Business Advocate? Do you know who it is? How effective is the Advocate and have you ever contacted his office? Have you used any state finance plans? Which ones? How can the state be more effective with their programs? I would really appreciate your responses. I was talking to a workers' compensation insurance carrier and got some really interesting information. They indicated that half of their workers' compensation claims from  people that have been on their job for less than 2 years. This is just one company but I think this probably  true for most companies. What has been your experience for your company? Scott Hauge President Small Business California 2311 Taraval Street San Francisco, CA  94116 shauge@cal-insure.com 415-680-2188

GO-Biz Hosting Webinars for Businesses Applying for California Competes Tax Credits

For those of you interested in California Competes Tax Credit
Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188 

GO-Biz Hosting Free Webinars in March for Businesses Interested in Applying for the California Competes Tax Credit

Sacramento, Calif. –  The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) is hosting six free webinars in March for businesses interested in applying for the California Competes Tax Credit (CCTC).  GO-Biz will accept applications for the CCTC from March 7, 2016, through March 28, 2016.  There will be at least $81 million in tax credits available for businesses that are expanding and adding jobs in the state. Businesses of all sizes are encouraged to apply.  The online application is available at www.calcompetes.ca.gov.  Since June 2014, GO-Biz has awarded $223 million in tax credits to 330 companies projected to create over 42,000 jobs and make $10.2 billion in investments in California.

Businesses interested in applying can register to attend any of the webinars and receive valuable information from GO-Biz staff.

Webinars

Tuesday, March 1, 2016: 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Details and Registration

Thursday, March 3, 2016: 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Details and Registration

Wednesday, March 9, 2016: 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Details and Registration

Thursday, March 17, 2016: 7:30 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.
Details and Registration

Thursday, March 17, 2016: 5:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Details and Registration

Monday, March 21, 2016: 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Details and Registration

For more information about the CCTC program, including an application guide and FAQs, please visit: www.business.ca.gov/calcompetes.aspx

If you have any questions regarding the CCTC program or application process, please call (916) 322-4051 or email CalCompetes@gov.ca.gov.

About the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz)
GO-Biz serves as California’s single point of contact for economic development and job creation efforts. GO-Biz offers a range of services to business owners including: attraction, retention and expansion services, site selection, permit streamlining, clearing of regulatory hurdles, small business assistance, international trade development, assistance with state government, and much more. For more information visit: www.business.ca.gov.

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Crowd Funding/ Workers' Compensation/ ACA

I have written frequently about our crowd funding bill. In a previous email I sent I  said we are introducing this bill again this year. The author is Assemblyman Chiu and  Senator Allen will be the coauthor.  The bill number is  AB2178.  As you may recall this bill will eliminate the requirement of a portal and replace it with oversight by the Department of Business Oversight . This will save  small businesses the 5 to 10%  which the portal charges. The amount that can be raised  is up to $1 million and is subject to a $5000 limit per year  for any investor.

The bill will also allow the business to solicit over the internet, which  is prohibited under the federal  JOBs Act.

We believe this will really help start up and expanding small businesses who have no access to venture capital and who have difficulty getting money from other sources like banks.

On a more negative note our  proposed bill to eliminate questions on the industry workers’ compensation application has died. The questions are:  

Do you have any employees over 60 ?

Do you have any employees with physical handicaps?

Basically we could not find an author as  some of  the California workers compensation carriers opposed the bill. Being an election year legislators were afraid of losing insurance company contributions. I don’t think the insurance companies would go public with their opposition .

It should be noted that State Fund - the largest workers compensation carrier in California - does not ask  these questions and has stated to me that they do not need this information  for underwriting.

I received a call from a client yesterday asking if he had to provide health insurance  for his employees under the Affordable Care Act.

He will have just over 50 employees. He was told by an insurance broker he didn’t have to because California recently increased the definition of small businesses to less than 100 employees.

It is true California  did increase the definition of small businesses  to less than 100 employees but it  did not eliminate the Affordable Health Care requirement  of employers with 50 to 99 employees to either provide health insurance or pay a fine.

He also said he had a 125 plan and paid 35% of his employees individual health l  coverage on a pretax basis. This is illegal. An employer cannot pay premiums for an employee’s individual  coverage and have it on a pretax basis.  This includes 125 plans and standalone Health reimbursement accounts. There are heavy fine for doing so.

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188 

OSHA Log/ACA Requirements

Please see information on California OSHA requirements.  You should have had this done by February 1,  but if not, complete form and post  where you keep your other posters. You only need to post the summary not all employee information. The requirements of the California recordkeeping standard apply to most of the employers that have over ten (10) employees. Some industries in the retail, service, finance, insurance and real estate sectors are potentially exempt from most recording requirements as are small businesses with ten or fewer employees. While some employers are partially exempt from recording requirements, all employers in California are still required to immediately report serious occupational injuries, illnesses or the death of an employee. Question When is Cal/OSHA form 300-A, the Annual Summary, supposed to be posted ? Answer By February 1 of the year following the year covered by the records until April 30 of that same year. http://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/etools/recordkeeping/index.html  I have had questions about how  to comply with health insurance requirements under the  Affordable Care Act. I will tell you it is not clear but here are some thoughts: If you work for a company with 50 or more employees,  your employer will provide you the 1095-B form that you provide the IRS on your 2015 tax return. If you work for a company with less than 50 employees [including full time and fulltime equivalents] or are individually covered, your insurance company will provide you the 1095-B form. As I understand it the employer and insurance companies  have until the end of March to provide you the 1095-B form. Technically, you have to file the insurance information with your tax return but you are probably okay to file without insurance information if you have had the same coverage for the entire year. Just make sure you keep in your records the insurance information when you receive it. I am  going to assume most of you have had insurance and not going to get into if you had  gaps in coverage  or insurance that doesn’t comply with ACA. Consult your accountant before filing your return. I welcome any comments. Scott Hauge President Small Business California 2311 Taraval Street San Francisco, CA  94116 shauge@cal-insure.com 415-680-2188

Acord Workers Compensation Application

Should Workers Compensation insurance companies be allowed to ask on their application whether employers have any employees over 60 or any employees with physical disabilities? To my knowledge every workers  compensation insurance company ask these questions except State Fund.

The application goes on to  say

“Any person who knowingly and with intent to defraud any insurance company or other person files an application for insurance containing any material false information or conceals, for the purpose of misleading, information concerning any fact material thereto commits a fraudulent insurance act, which is a crime and subjects that person to criminal and civil penalties.”

The only purpose I can see to ask these questions is that answers saying  an employer has employees over 60 or with disabilities  can effect a workers  compensation insurance companies underwriting and pricing of  the employers  workers compensation insurance.

What makes this more interesting is that I think an employer cannot ask these question of an employee.  I do understand that an employer will have information on an employee’s age but should they be forced to divulge that  to the insurance company?

Small Business California is looking to introduce a bill requiring insurance companies to not require the answer to these two questions. To State Funds credit that is what they have done and  they have told me the questions are not necessary for underwriting

Interestingly  enough we are getting resistance from some insurance companies

I don’t know how many of you have signed an Acord Workers Compensation application where you have answered no to these question. It is quite possible you have not signed the an application but your broker has and probably  answered no. Has your broker asked you these questions?

What do you think?

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188 

Unemployment Tax Increases

Some of you have asked why they are paying more on their unemployment Taxes. Let me try to explain. I posed this question to Greg Riggs at EDD and here is his response when I asked him why California with its budget surplus, didn’t just  pay the debt off.

California’s Unemployment Trust Fund first became insolvent in January 2009 due to the great recession.  California like many other states received a loan to pay our benefits obligations during the recession.  The loan balance currently stands at $6.5 billion as of January 13, 2016.  This loan is being repaid primarily from the reduce credit reductions that employers obtain when filing their Federal Unemployment taxes.  It should be noted that three other states and one territory still have outstanding loans.  Some states secured a bond to pay off the loan, but had to raise state taxes to help pay the bond.  In the e-mail below it cites that California has a surplus.  I believe that is a reference to other state funds or the State’s General Fund.  It does not apply to California’s Unemployment Trust Fund which includes revenue from employers who pay State Unemployment Insurance taxes that are collected by the Employment Development Department and are used to pay benefits.  In recent years, California’s General Fund has covered the costs to pay the interests on the outstanding federal loan.  Below is a more detailed explanation at the credit reduction.         

As a result of the ongoing Unemployment Trust Fund insolvency for California, employers have been subject to a reduction in the credit received on Federal Unemployment taxes.  The standard Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) rate is 6.0 percent on the first $7,000 of earnings by an employee.  However, this is typically reduced to a rate of only 0.6 percent as a result of a 5.4 percent credit employers receive.  When a state has an outstanding Unemployment Trust Fund loan for more than two years, this credit begins to be reduced annually by increments of 0.3 percent until such time as the outstanding loan balance is repaid or the full FUTA credit is wiped out and employers are left to pay the 6.0 percent tax rate.  So in essence, employers Federal Unemployment taxes have been going up by an additional 0.3 percent or $21 per employee each year to help pay down the loan.  The first year employers began to have their FUTA credit reduced was in tax year 2011.  I hope this helps.         

  

           

GREGORY M. RIGGS

Deputy Director

Policy, Accountability & Compliance Branch

Employment Development Department

800 Capitol Mall, MIC 76

Sacramento, CA 95814

(916) 654- 7014

It is not clear when the loan will be repaid to the Federal government, but it is expected sometime in 2018 or 2019, so these taxes should increase until it is repaid. Keep in mind, that while there is a surplus of about $200 million in the collections of taxes, this is  razor thin and based on a good economy.

If the economy  should  turn sour,  we could be back in a deficit. Does this remind you of Governor Brown's comments in his State of the State speech about the state’s budget?

Note the state is picking up the  interest cost on the loan from the Federal government and at this time it is not expected that the state will pass this on to employers.                                   

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188 

Scheduling Flyer Outreach

Please see information in link about small business helping to get coverage for children. Note Open Enrollment is Jan 31.

You can find the flyer through this link:
 http://www.childrenspartnership.org/storage/documents/OurWork/TCP_SmallBusinessFlyer_ForPrint_January2016.pdf.
Small Business employers can also access resources to print and online on the bottom of this webpage,
 http://www.childrenspartnership.org/component/content/article/971.

Please take a moment to read how our partnership is highlighted in a recent article by California Healthline.

Also please see the attached article about small business and the  opportunities with California High Speed Rail Authority.  http://www.hsr.ca.gov/Programs/Small_Business/newsletter.html



Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188

Info on Sm Businesses Helping Empl. Get Coverage for Kids/ SBA Lending/Initiatives/Crowd Funding

Please see information in link about getting coverage for children

      You can find the flyer through this link, http://www.childrenspartnership.org/storage/documents/OurWork/TCP_SmallBusinessFlyer_ForPrint_January2016.pdf. 

         Small Business employers can also access resources to print and online on the bottom of this webpage, http://www.childrenspartnership.org/component/content/article/971. 

  

Mark Quinn, the District Director of the SBA in SF, reported on the SBA lending for last year. Nationally lending was up around 20%. In California however, SBA lending was up significantly more and in the Bay Area was up around 40%.  The total SBA lending in California  was $5.35 billion.  According to Mark,  the lending for SBA is probably going to level off and may even go down. This actually could be good news as there is more competition  for small business loans heating up.

This is going to be the Year of the Initiatives in California. These will be on the November ballot. In a previous email I mentioned the  possibility of two minimum wage initiatives but there are about 19 that are being considered. In 2004 there were 16 propositions. Some of the initiatives being considered are:

Legalization of Marijuana

Plastic Bags

New Gun control laws

Bar state agencies from paying more for prescription drugs than the lowest  price paid by the Department of Veteran Affairs

$9 billion in state bonds for school construction.

$2 dollar tax on  a pack of cigarettes

Continuation of Proposition 30. There are a couple of measures here.

Lowering the drinking age to 18
 

Not all of these are going to make it but I think I can safely say voters are probably going to be confused as it will be   crowded.

I will have more news on our crowd funding bill in the next week or so, but the good news is, it looks like we will have an author and a coauthor for our legislation. We have tried for about three years to get this passed and are very optimistic this is going to be our year.

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188 

Affordable Care Act / GO-Biz Cal Competes Application Period Opens through January 25

Some of you may know Kathy Robertson who was with the Sacramento Business Journal. She left and is now a free-lance reporter. She called me yesterday on a story she is doing about how small business feels about the Affordable Care Act 5 years after its inception. What are your comments? As you all probably know The Republicans will be sending a bill to the President to repeal it. He will surely veto this, but do you think it should be repealed?

Sorry I didn’t get this to you sooner but there is still time to participate in the Webinar January 19.  Please be aware of availability of getting a tax credit and information on how to obtain the credit.

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188

SB 358 Fair Pay Act

Yesterday I received a call from Laura Sydell of National Public Radio asking how small businesses were going to deal with SB 358 the Fair Pay Act which will become effective Jan 1. I said I was not sure if most small businesses knew about the bill and  had probably not given much thought as  to  how they were going to address it in their company.
What the bill does, is require employers to provide  equal  pay to employees regardless of their gender, if they are  performing substantially similar  functions regardless of their  job titles. It also says employers will be required to pay employees equally even if they work at different locations. This of course is subject to business factors like different minimum wage laws per location or cost of living but it is not clearly spelled out in the legislation
Lastly, it allows employees to  be able to discuss their income  with fellow employees without being subject to discrimination from their employer.
The employer does have some protection if they can prove the income differences are based on seniority or merit., education, and training.
The reason cited for the bill is that women in California make 84% of what men make. Nationally the number is 74%. This law appears to be the strongest  state law for gender equality in the United States.
It should be noted that the California Chamber of Commerce supported the bill saying it would reduce lawsuits by clarifying how employers can protect themselves. This however is disputed by some others in the legal community. I don’t think any reasonable  person  would argue  the point that there should be gender equality and employers should be held accountable,  but as always the devil is in the details,
Are you aware of this bill and are you taking steps to change your employment policies if necessary? For full details of this bill go to www.leginfo.ca.gov


Small Business California would like to wish all of you a successful, safe and healthy New Year . I hope for 2016 one of your resolutions will be to speak out and let the small business voice be heard  among state and local legislators and the Governor.

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188 







 

State Fund/ Minimum Wage/ Holidays Premium Pay

Next week Small Business California will be meeting with executives of State Fund. I would appreciate  any comments any of you have about State Fund and suggestions how they can better work with California small businesses. Please respond by Monday of next week.

I hope you are all aware that the minimum wage in California will be going up to $10 Jan 1 2016.

Earlier in the week a member asked  whether they were required to pay a premium for employees working on Holidays citing Jan 1 as an example. The answer is no . Keep in mind the same rules apply if a nonexempt  employee works over 8 hours. In this case overtime must be paid.

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188

Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act 2015[PATH]/ Affordable Care Act ACA

The Senate and The House have passed and the President has signed PATH. While there are a lot of important provisions for small business in this bill, the two most important are making the 179 permanent and the R&D credit permanent.  Todd McCracken, President of the National Small Business Association said last week “There is no single item in the tax code more critical to incentivizing small business investment than Section 179 expensing.” He goes on to say “the most commonly used small business tax deduction or credit is Section 179 Expensing  and one in ten small firms utilize the R&D.”

For those of you not aware of Section 179 it allows up to $500,000 for write offs on investments in new  and used equipment and off the shelf software. Had not been signed, the $500,000 limit would have been reduced to $25,000.

For those of you that provide health insurance to your employees, I would guess you don’t provide it to your employees dependents. If you make it available to your employees but do not pay for it you may be creating a problem for the employees dependents because they will not be able to take advantage of any subsidies in the Exchange. This is called the family glitch and is part of the ACA.  There are efforts in Washington to change this and Small Business California will be working to change this over the next year.

Enjoy your Holidays and we want to wish all of you a great and healthy New Year.

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188 

Cadillac Tax

The budget deal signed by President Obama last week included a delay of 2 years  of  the Cadillac Tax. Scheduled under the Affordable Care Act, the Cadillac Tax was scheduled to take effect 2018. It now will take effect 2020 and there will be great pressure between now and then to repeal the tax completely.

The Cadillac tax imposes a 40% excise tax on employer sponsored health premiums  exceeding $10,250 for individuals and $27,500 for families.  The tax is paid by employers.

In 2016 Small Business California will be celebrating its 11th anniversary. Many of you have been receiving these emails/mail chimps from the beginning and we have added literally  thousands of  small businesses over the last 11 years.

Small Business California has been a factor in Sacramento representing small business with Lori Kammerer, our public affairs representative and I testifying on hundreds of bills coming before the legislature over the years. If you are not currently a member I hope you will consider joining. The cost is $150 a year for small businesses with less than $1 million in gross receipts and $300 for businesses over $1 million. You can join online at www.smallbusinesscalifornia.org or we can invoice you if you provide us information by return email.

Small Business California wants to wish all of you and your family  a wonderful Holiday Season.

 
Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188 

Minimum Wage

On January 1 the minimum wage will go to $10 in California. I am  fairly certain there will be legislation next year to increase this.

One proposal I have heard is increasing the minimum wage to $11 in 2017 and then $1 a year until it reaches $15. It would also include a cost of living increase.

Thoughts? Do you have minimum wage employees? Is there any increase you would be okay with?

Small Business California is looking  for ideas of legislation small businesses would like to see introduced.  Remember it must be state  legislation.  Please give me your ideas.

Scott Hauge
President
Small Business California
2311 Taraval Street
San Francisco, CA  94116
shauge@cal-insure.com
415-680-2188