Many times, business owners look to cut costs by eliminating benefits packages. But, in many cases, the financial advantages of offering benefits apply to both the company and the employee. In most benefit packages, many of the benefits are things an employee will purchase with their after-tax dollars, if not offered by the company. Health care is one of these kinds of benefits. Let’s run through a financial example of how offering a health care benefit can help both the employee and the company. Imagine our employee, Jim, is going to use his after-tax dollars to pay for health insurance. If he is earning $3,000 per month, he might be taking home $2,250 after income taxes, FICA and Medicare taxes have been deducted from his paycheck. After paying $300 for his own health insurance, he has $1,950 left. Let’s see if we can help Jim, and the company, wind up with more money in the bank. If Jim were being paid $2,700 per month and the company was paying the health insurance cost of $300 per month, J ...

The phrase “payroll tax” is commonly used to address both the amounts withheld from employee paychecks and the taxes paid by the employer that are related to the payroll amounts. The withholdings are the amounts that are removed from an employee’s paycheck before they get it. It’s the difference in amounts between the employee’s salary and their “take-home” pay. Sometimes the withholdings are called the “pay-as-you-go taxes.” The income taxes withheld are pre-payments for federal, state and local income taxes. While filing annual tax returns, employees can find their “final” tax exposure and arrange for tax returns if they have over-paid during the year. Depending on the employees’ tax bracket and financial status, they may owe more taxes than were deducted. Medicare and Social Security is another consistent payroll withholding. Employees pay into these social security programs to help fund current and future program needs. The recent ...

Florida employers could see their workers’ compensation increase. On behalf of customers, the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) is looking for a statewide average of 6.1 percent rate hike. If the increase is approved, the NCCI filing would mark the third consecutive increase. In 2012, there was a 8.9 percent increase and in 2011, the increase was 7.8 percent.  Even though there have been increases over the past few years, for the past decade, the overall trend of rates in the state has been down. Since lawmakers rewrote the state’s workers’ compensation law back in 2003, employers’ rates have gone down an average of 56 percent. If they are approved, the new rates would go into place January 1, 2013. If approved, all five major classifications would see an increase. Here is the breakdown: Contracting Classes – Would increase by 7.4 percent  Goods and Service Classes – Would increase by 6.7 percent  Manufacturing Classes &nda ...

A co-owner and operator of three Miami pharmacies pleaded guilty in to a $23 million health care fraud scheme. Jose Carlos Morales pleaded guilty before the U.S. District Court to conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to pay illegal health care kickbacks. Court documents indicate Morales co-owned Pharmovisa Inc. and PharmovisaMD Inc., which together operated three pharmacies in Miami. Morales pleaded guilty to paying co-conspirators kickbacks in return for beneficiary information which he used to submit Medicare and Medicaid claims. The beneficiaries resided in assisted living facilities located in Miami. According to court documents, Morales also paid physicians kickbacks in exchange for prescription referrals. Morales billed the referrals to Medicare. The case also documents a process that began in 2007 in which delivery drivers working for the three pharmacies would visit assisted living facilities to distribute medication. They were instructed to pick up unused medication and delivery ...

Commercial insurance prices rose 6% between July and September of this year. This continues the seven straight quarters where commercial insurance increased, according to a recent report by Towers Watson & Co. Workers’ compensation, as a part of the commercial insurance picture, racked up some of the largest increases. According to the report, "The largest price increases year over year included workers' compensation, now approaching double digits, and employment practices liability, followed closely by commercial property, where price increases have moderated somewhat since last quarter." The report was put together with information from 39 commercial insurance companies that represented about 20% of the commercial insurance market in the U.S. The reports noted that the loss ratios for the companies improved over 3% year-over-year for the quarter. As a business owner, it is important to keep an eye on how your employees are classified with workers’ compensation. As duties assigned to di ...