See how easy it is for your employees to report you to the Department of Labor. They use a free app on their smartphones which triggers a full-blown investigation that you want to avoid.
Transcript:
Attention New York business owners. This is one of the scariest letters you can get. It’s from the US Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division. This one’s from the Long Island District Office.
After watching this video, I hope that you will learn from other business owners’ mistakes, and never get surprised with a letter like this.
The US Department of Labor is a cabinet department of the US government reporting directly to the President of the United States.
With our new administration in place, the emphasis has shifted to more regulation and greater enforcement. I must admit that even I was shocked by how quickly New York business owners are feeling the impact.
Here’s a letter a business owner on Long Island received on May 14, 2021. The wage and hour investigator is requesting records from the owner in just five days.
Let me read some of this to you.
“The records requested below are due on May 19, 2021, to determine such compliance. The normal procedure is to hold an opening conference with a representative of the company, review certain records covering a two-year period interview a representative number of employees, and hold a closing conference to discuss the results of the investigation.”
These are the things they’re looking for. Number one is the legal name of the company.
Number two, names, addresses, email addresses, and telephone numbers of all business owners and company officers.
Number three are records demonstrating your gross annual dollar volume of sales for the past three years.
Number four—this one’s a big one! A list of all current and former employees employed during the period of May 2018 through May 2021—three years’ worth! Along with their addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers—mobile and landline phone numbers, hourly rate or salary, job title, shift, and whether you consider that employee exempt from overtime pay.
Wow! That’s a mouthful right there.
Number five, payroll, and time records for the past three years, including a copy of the most recently completed payroll, which reflects wages, hours worked, and deductions for all employees.
They want all your 1099 forms.
They want your federal ID number.
They want all your cash disbursement records, wages or payments made to any employee during the investigative period.
Once this happens you must hire lawyers, and accountants, and pay them hefty fees to represent you. At the end of the investigation, you will also end up paying back wages, penalties, interest, and fines.
Going through an investigation from the Wage and Hour Division can wreak emotional and financial havoc on you and your business.
Oh, and by the way you are personally liable for this. So, you can’t just close your business, close your bank accounts, and be done with this. They will come after your personal assets—like your house to collect from you.
How can Baron help? Ask us to look at your payroll and timekeeping practices right now. Let us dig in, see how you’re doing things now, and make suggestions of things you can change to improve your compliance with the wage and hour laws.
Nine times out of ten we can reverse engineer the amounts you are currently paying your employees and display them differently the way the department of labor wants to see them on your employee’s pay statements without it even costing you more money in payroll.
Just change the way you are doing things, and the way things look in your timekeeping and payroll records.
To take us up on this offer, and clean the skeletons out of your closet before they send you a nasty letter like this, contact Bill Elkins.
Be "in the know" and avoid getting investigated by the Department of Labor.
