Last week, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act was signed into law. We’ve had a few days to digest this new law, and how it will impact you. There are still a few unknowns, but here is what we know right now.
All provisions below become effective April 2nd and expire December 31st.
Emergency Paid Sick Leave
- Employers are required to provide up to 80 hours of emergency paid sick leave related to the Coronavirus.
- The paid sick leave applies when an employee is in quarantine for, being treated for, is experiencing symptoms of, or caring for a loved one with symptops of or diagnosed with Coronavirus.
- Full time employees are to be given 80 hours. Part time employees should be given “a number of hours equal to the number of hours that such employee works, on average, over a 2-week period.”
- The bill caps the amount paid for full time employees to $511 per day and $5,110 total. For part time totals, the cap is $200 per day and $2000 total.
Family Medical Leave Act Expansion
- Employers must provide up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave, ten weeks of which would be paid at 2/3 their normal hourly rate.
- The first 2 weeks could be unpaid, paid through normal vacation or sick accrual policies, or paid in conjunction with the Emergency Paid Leave noted above.
- The same eligibility rules apply to this FLMA expansion as the Emergency Paid Sick Leave.
- The bill caps the amount of paid FMLA to no more than $200 per day or $10,000 total.
Tracking & Reimbursement
If you find yourself in need of implementing either of these provisions of the law, PLEASE CONTACT US to ensure we set the tracking up correctly for you in payroll. You will need to track these appropriately to ensure that you’re reimbursed as the law provides for.
- For Paid Sick Leave, employer related credits would be applied to the employer portion of Social Security tax (6.24% of wages paid).
- The amount of the credit varies based upon the type of sick leave taken.
- If there isn’t enough credit to be taken from the social security tax contribution, employers may apply for emergency reimbursement from IRS.
IMPORTANT: We have not received guidance from IRS on how the reimbursement process will work. IRS has indicated guidance will be available later this week.
We do not anticipate to have any issues processing Quarter 1 as these provisions do not take effect until April 2nd. We will update you as soon as we know more about the reimbursement mechanism. For now, we need to track appropriately so that reimbursement will be easy going forward.
We will continue to update you on these important legislative updates as information is available. We are still in the office, quarantined from visitors, to help you with all of your needs.
Stay healthy & strong-
You friends at Paper Trails