Topic: LEGAL & LEGISLATIVE

NAPEO’s Regulatory Database (RDB) is at the very core of the NAPEO value proposition and is positioned to become even more so with the increased prevalence of remote work. Since the pandemic accelerated the disruption of traditional office life, NAPEO has begun receiving panicked questions from regional PEOs facing a common, recurring issue: a client employer has a remote-work employee in a state where the PEO is not licensed. If your PEO faces a similar issue, your first stop should likely be the RDB, followed closely by a frank conversation with your compliance advisor.

At the NAPEO Annual Conference & Marketplace in late September 2021, there was a buzz in the air about national retirement policy. Only a few weeks earlier, on September 9, the House Ways and Means Committee had just approved, on a straight party-line vote, an ambitious plan to remake the national private retirement system as part of the Democrat’s broader Build Back Better Act agenda. This proposal would have required all employers, except the very newest and very smallest, to offer retirement savings vehicles to virtually all employees. NAPEO staff and I were fielding questions non-stop about the opportunities and challenges this bill would create for PEOs. It really felt as if a new retirement plan mandate on employers was on the verge of becoming law.

Laying to rest any doubt that employers would continue to enjoy a business-friendly interpretation of the standard to determine joint employment status, a federal appeals court recently put the final nail in the coffin of the Trump-era attempt to shield businesses from being considered joint employers in a wide spectrum of circumstances. This move clears the way for the current administration to cement into place a broad standard that captures a wide swath of business arrangements into the “joint employer” category.