‘Do I Have to Offer a Paid Holiday on Labor Day?’ SPARK Blog

With the holiday season fast approaching, review your policies and practices to make sure you are paying employees in accordance with federal, state, and local rules. To date, the Department of Labor (DOL) hasn’t specifically addressed situations in which a company paid holiday falls during a time in which an employee is on FFCRA leave. Consider consulting legal counsel to help determine how to treat these types of situations. With the holiday season underway, questions about holidays, pay, and year-end bonuses tend to surface.

Absent a requirement, employers generally have the option of paying employees on the day before or after the holiday. With Labor Day approaching, employers may have questions about providing time off to employees and the pay requirements for employees who do work on Labor Day. To help you understand the rules, here are answers to FAQ about this paid holiday.

Tax Withholding on Bonuses:

Absent a state requirement, some employers choose to offer premium pay to employees as an incentive to work on a holiday. C. While employers typically don’t have to pay non-exempt employees for time off on a holiday, exempt employees must still receive their full pay, as long as they work any part of the workweek. Unless obligated by contract or agreement, private employers are generally not required to provide paid holidays to non-exempt employees (those entitled to minimum wage and overtime). However, if your company closes on a holiday, exempt employees (those who meet specific salary and duties requirements) must generally still receive their full pay, as long as they work any part of the workweek. When determining an employee’s regular rate of pay for the purposes of overtime, employers must include nondiscretionary bonuses.

Holiday Pay and Year-End Bonuses: What’s Required, What’s Not?

To help you understand requirements and best practices related to these topics, here are several do’s and don’ts to keep in mind. Make sure you understand the rules that apply to your business and clearly communicate, and consistently apply, your policy on holiday pay. Day, President’s Day, Juneteenth, Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and Veterans Day.

When calculating overtime, forget to apportion bonuses earned over multiple          workweeks.

To help you better understand the rules, we present several common questions below. With the holiday season approaching, employers may be considering whether they have to provide employees with paid time off for holidays, or extra pay when they work on a holiday. Here we answer these and other frequently asked questions about holiday pay. While the fluctuating workweek method can seem like an attractive option for reducing overtime costs when compared with the standard overtime calculation, there are some things to consider. For example, some states, including California, expressly prohibit employers from using the fluctuating workweek method for paying overtime.

If the nondiscretionary bonus is earned over a single workweek, the bonus is added to the employee’s regular earnings for that workweek when determining the regular rate of pay. However, if the bonus is earned over a series of workweeks, the bonus must be included in the regular rate of pay in all overtime weeks covered by the bonus period. If necessary, you may temporarily disregard the bonus in computing the regular hourly rate until you know the bonus amount. Then, apportion it back over the workweeks of the period during which the employee earned the bonus. If the nondiscretionary bonus is earned over a single workweek, the bonus is added to the employee’s regular earnings for that workweek when determining their regular rate of pay. Then, apportion it back over the workweeks in which the employee earned the bonus.

As the year winds down, review your policies and practices to make sure you’re paying employees in accordance with federal, state, and local rules. For example, let’s say an employee’s normal base wage is $12 per hour, but the employee is paid double that for work performed on Labor Day. When your check date falls on a bank holiday, and you wish to pay employees the day before, adjust your check date to avoid delaying payroll delivery.

Consider ways to reduce absenteeism around paid holidays.

For federal taxes, bonuses up to $1 million are typically taxed at a flat rate of 25 percent (a higher percentage adp holiday pay for amounts over $1 million). For example, cash, a gift certificate, gift card, and similar items that can easily be exchanged for cash are typically considered taxable wages, regardless of the amount (see IRS Publication 15-B). However, if an employer gives a turkey, ham, or other item of nominal value for the holidays, it is generally not considered taxable income.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has ruled that an employee may be entitled to use medical marijuana as an accommodation under the New Hampshire Law Against Discrimination (NHLAD).

However, under federal law, employers may exclude premium pay for work on a holiday when determining an employee’s regular rate of pay. Check your state law, which may have additional rules on whether premium pay must be included in the determination. Under federal law, there is generally no requirement to pay non-exempt employees a premium for working on a holiday, unless it results in the employee working more than 40 hours in the workweek. However, there are exceptions in states like Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where some employers may be required to provide premium pay regardless of how many hours the employee worked. For example, Rhode Island requires employers to pay 1.5 times an employee’s normal rate of pay for any hours worked on designated state holidays (certain industries are exempt from this requirement).

However, the changes don’t take effect until January 1, 2020, so bonuses earned in 2019 cannot be used to meet the minimum. Effective January 1, 2020 the DOL’s final rule increased the minimum salary requirement to $684 per week to be considered exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Bonuses are generally considered supplemental wages and are subject to federal taxes as well as certain state taxes.

• Effective January 1, 2020 the DOL’s final rule increased the minimum salary requirement to $684 per week to be considered exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
• If a scheduled payday falls on a holiday, some states require payment on the preceding business day.
• As mentioned above, when determining an employee’s regular rate of pay for the purposes of overtime, you must include nondiscretionary bonuses.
• When an employee receives in excess of $1 million in supplemental wages, the withholding on the excess is 37 percent, according to the IRS.
• With Labor Day approaching, employers may have questions about providing time off to employees and the pay requirements for employees who do work on Labor Day.

The views expressed on this blog are those of the blog authors, and not necessarily those of ADP. ADP does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy, reliability, and completeness of the content on this blog. As the year comes to an end, make sure your pay practices comply with federal, state, and local rules. Is there a topic or business challenge you would like to see covered on SPARK?

• When it comes to time off, employers must consider what holidays to observe and how to handle various pay issues.
• However, if an employer gives a turkey, ham, or other item of nominal value for the holidays, it is generally not considered taxable income.
• Consider consulting legal counsel to help determine how to treat these types of situations.
• An employee’s specific holiday schedule is determined by the holiday program that is assigned to his/her pay group.
• You can create multiple holiday programs to be assigned to different groups of employees (pay groups).
• You cannot edit these rules, but you must assign every holiday you create to a holiday qualification rule.

Once a holiday program has been created, you can add and deleted specific holidays within that program or make changes to the definition of each holiday. However, if an employer gives a turkey, ham, or other item of nominal value for the holidays, it’s generally not considered taxable income. As a practitioner, you can view the holiday programs that have already been created for your company. Your company may use multiple holiday programs if different groups of employees are allowed different holidays (for example, if your company has employees who work in two different countries). An employee’s specific holiday schedule is determined by the holiday program that is assigned to his/her pay group.