Legislative Session number- 84

Bill Name: SF0944

2E Relating to unemployment insurance, conforming various provisions to federal
requirements and making technical and housekeeping changes

ARTICLE 1 -
FEDERAL CONFORMITY PROVISIONS

Modifying certain wage detail report
requirements; requiring and providing for the reporting on employer wage detail
reports of workers performing services for single member limited liability
companies (LLC), imposing penalties for failure to comply; imposing a separate
administrative service penalty on employers omitting employees from the report;
providing for the assignment of tax or reimbursable accounts to employee leasing
companies, professional employer organizations or similar persons, specifying
certain wage detail reporting requirements and imposing penalties for failure to
comply; modifying and clarifying certain experience rating transfer
requirements, changing the term to experience rating history, expanding the
definition of common ownership and specifying certain successor employer notice
requirements; expanding the authority of the commissioner of employment and
economic development (DEED) to recompute employer tax rates under certain tax
avoidance actions conditions and providing for application of the recomputed
rates; clarifying the liability of employee leasing companies, professional
organizations or similar persons for unpaid amounts due; imposing penalties for
employer failure to meet certain notice requirements or for misreports,
authorizing appeal; requiring the commissioner to implement systems and
processes to detect, investigate and enforce the required experience rating
history transfers; enacting the changes to meet the requirements of the federal
SUTA dumping prevention act of 2004; repealing the common paymaster and joint
tax accounts and the group reimbursable account and certain rules relating to
consolidated reports and the effect of acquisitions on the liability status of
successors

ARTICLE 2 - HOUSEKEEPING PROVISIONS

Modifying or clarifying
certain definitions; clarifying certain employer registration and wage detail
reports filing requirements; increasing the late fee for failure to timely file
wage detail reports and the number of waivers allowed per year; clarifying
eligibility for the tax rate buydown; eliminating the exclusion of school
districts from the provision providing for taxpaying employer election for trust
fund payment purposes; expanding the authority of nonprofit organizations to
make trust fund reimbursements; clarifying employer eligibility for certain
credit adjustments and certain requirements for payment of unemployment benefits
relating to disqualification, outstanding overpayments and ineligibility;
eliminating a certain restriction on the availability of unemployment benefits
from the trust fund; expanding eligibility to receive benefits and excluding
election judge service from eligibility; clarifying the ineligibility of
applicants working as volunteers or filing or refusing to provide certain
information relating to eligibility or disqualification, the application of the
provision delaying benefits upon the receipt of certain other types of pay and
the deductible earnings requirement relating to volunteer firefighters or
ambulance service personnel; requiring continued biweekly requests for benefits
to include information on eligibility as well as disqualification and
eliminating the telephone as an authorized method for filing the requests;
specifying the duration of benefits ineligibility for failure to accept offers
of suitable employment and clarifying the application of the provision,
requiring applicant reports of offers refused; clarifying and modifying certain
appeal provisions, eliminating references to senior unemployment review judges
and transferring certain responsibilities to the commissioner or unemployment
law judges and changing the term appeal to request for reconsideration, granting
the court of appeals certain unemployment law judge decisions affirmation or
modification authority; clarifying certain benefit overpayment provisions,
requiring the crediting of interest on overpayments to the administration
account; clarifying the application of certain administrative penalties;
authorizing the commissioner to compute unemployment tax rates assigned on or
after a certain date regardless of the year or portion of the year applicable;
specifying certain name, term and headnote change and renumbering instructions
to the revisor of statutes; repealing certain wage reporting requirements and
certain rules relating to hearing decisions, representation, authorized domestic
service, the chargeability or effect of experience rates or taxes, taxpaying
accounts and interest
(ra, ja)