Overview:

This webinar discusses the rules and regulations that must be followed when paying an employee for travel pay. It includes what is travel pay, best practices for handling the payments, how it affects overtime calculations and what is required on the state level. It also discusses the requirements for taxing travel expenses under IRS rules.

Background:

How to compensate employees for the hours spent traveling on business is becoming one of the major concerns of the payroll department today.  Many recent changes in federal and state wage and hour rules as well as economic pressures on employers and employees alike can create a situation that can practically invite noncompliance lawsuits—especially if the travel time results in overtime being owed to the employee.

But it isn’t just the DOL that is interested in travel pay. The IRS also has strict regulations on when employees can be paid for travel expenses without it being considered wages. Does the company use the per diem method to reimburse employees or the accountable plan method?  Or do you even need to have a method when it comes to reimbursing employees for travel expenses?

Areas covered in this webinar:

• Travel pay requirements—What you must pay for and why
• Best practices for paying travel pay correctly
• Which employees have to be paid…and when
• Payroll Compliance and travel pay issues—keeping wage and hour claims at bay
• What to do when federal and state laws conflict and handling multiple state conflict issues
• How travel pay affects overtime calculations—travel pay differences for exempt and non-exempt employees
• Special circumstances that may require travel payment
• What are per diems
• When travel payments are taxable
• Accountable and nonaccountable plans

Who can Benefit:

• Payroll Executives/Managers/Administrators/Professionals/Practitioners/Entry Level Personnel
• Human Resources Executives/Managers/Administrators
• Accounting Personnel
• Business Owners/Executive Officers/Operations and Departmental Managers
• Lawmakers
• Attorneys/Legal Professionals
• Any individual or entity that must deal with the complexities and requirements of Payroll compliance issues

Instructor Profile:

Vicki M. Lambert, CPP, is President and Academic Director of The Payroll Advisor™, a firm specializing in payroll education and training. The company’s website www.thepayrolladvisor.com offers a payroll news service which keeps payroll professionals up-to-date on the latest rules and regulations.