This course discusses the issues surrounding employees working anywhere outside the traditional office.

Before the pandemic we all normally worked together in the same office at the same time. Then, suddenly, Covid hit. And everything changed. Hundreds of thousands of employees scattered to the four winds. Some just went home from the office and stayed there. Others move their home, maybe to be closer to family for the duration. And we all thought that after Covid was over everything will return to as it was. But has it and will it? Many employees discovered that they enjoyed working from home and were even more productive, while still others longed to return to the office. 21st technology allowed us to work from anywhere during the pandemic and will continue to allow employees and employers the freedom to work from anywhere. Unfortunately, as we come to a close on the major upheaval of the pandemic and start to settle into the new normal of office life, the compliance issues are not as easy to address as the technology ones were at the beginning.

During the pandemic many states did not enforce their taxation rules because they too assumed that the moves by employees were temporary. Why set up as an employer in a state that your employee will only be there for 2 months, never to return to work there again. As the dust settles, we are discovering that employees working totally outside of the standard office or as a hybrid employee (part time in office, part time at home) is becoming the new norm. The states are reacting to this new business model. No more free-pass on taxing employees working from home which happens to be across the state line. By 2022 all states reverted back to their withholding requirements for state income tax be honored as it would have been pre-Covid. So just what are those taxation requirements? What if the employee works as a hybrid, coming into the office a couple of days per week? What if they work from home and only come into the office once a month, a quarter or even once a year? Does that alter the requirements? And is state income tax the only compliance issue?

Where an employee is physically located determines which state’s wage and hour laws apply. An employee now living and working from home in Indiana would be subject to Indiana wage hour laws even if the employee used to work in Illinois and the employer is still located in Illinois. Overtime rules, minimum wage rates, and permitted deductions from paychecks, even paystub requirements are governed by where the employee is physically performing the work. The same applies to garnishments for child support and creditors. Payroll must make determinations on all these compliance issues in the age where employees can work from literally anywhere.