The Family Medical Leave Act is the 20-year-old labor law that provides job protection and unpaid leave for medical and family reasons. Flower shops that are still operating are facing some updated rules due to COVID-19 here are the new rules for Sick/Medical leave.
New FMLA Rules for COVID-19
- 2 weeks paid leave
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- Small business must provide for all employees that have to stay home because of the Coronavirus, whether sick or caring for the sick.
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- Childcare
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- You must pay 12 weeks at 2/3 pay if an employee needs to stay home with a child.
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- Payroll Tax Reduction
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- This expense will be reimbursed to you through reduced payroll tax payments.
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- Health Care Coverage
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- If you have been offering employees health care coverage, you must continue to pay that during these times of leave, which is also paid back to you through a payroll tax reduction.
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On condition that your payroll taxes are not large enough to offset the expense, the remainder of the money paid out will be refunded to you “as quickly as possible”. Whether this causes a financial hardship for the company, you can file for an exemption from this provision.
It is important that you take into account these new rules for your business when you’re employees are applying to the Sick/Medical leave during the COVID-19 crisis, you must review everything to see if your business has everything in order for giving these leaves to the employees. We would like to remind you that you always have to talk with your accountant and adviser about these topics.
In Floranext we want to tell you that we’re all in this together and that this crisis shall pass too.