California Ag Network

Tag: Employment

  • Employees Must Receive EITC Notice

    Fresno, Calif., (January 8, 2018) – Employers in California must notify employees every year about the Earned Income Tax Credit. Further, an employer must process, upon an employee’s request and as per federal law, Internal Revenue Service Form W-5 for advance payments of the EITC.

    The EITC Information Act, codified in Revenue and Taxation Code sections 19850 to 19854, covers every employer required to provide unemployment insurance (UI) to its employees. A covered employer must give the notice to all of its employees who are covered by UI; even employees whose earnings are far above the EITC eligibility limit must get the notice. An employer must notify an employee that the employee may be eligible for the EITC within one week before or after, or at the same time, that the employer gives the employee an annual wage summary, such as an IRS Form W-2 or Form 1099.

    The employer must either hand the notice to the employee or mail it to the employee’s last-known address. Posting a notice on an employee bulletin board or sending it through office mail does not suffice.

    The employer may choose between two notices. The first is a rather lengthy notice and is specified in the statute:

    Based on your annual earnings, you may be eligible to receive the earned income tax credit from the federal government. The earned income tax credit is a refundable federal income tax credit for low-income working individuals and families. The earned income tax credit has no effect on certain welfare benefits. In most cases, earned income tax credit payments will not be used to determine eligibility for Medicaid, supplemental security income, food stamps, low-income housing or most temporary assistance for needy families payments. Even if you do not owe federal taxes, you must file a tax return to receive the earned income tax credit. Be sure to fill out the earned income tax credit form in the federal income tax return booklet. For information regarding your eligibility to receive the earned income tax credit, including information on how to obtain the IRS Notice 797 or Form W-5, or any other necessary forms and instructions, contact the Internal Revenue Service at 1-800-829-3676 or through its Web site at www.irs.gov.

    Unfortunately, that notice might confuse and/or make many employees who do not qualify for the EITC question their employer’s competency because it begins:

    Based on your annual earnings, you may be eligible to receive the earned income tax credit.

    This sentence makes it sound as though the employer evaluated the employee’s earnings and determined there is a reasonable prospect that the employee qualifies for the EITC, when in fact no evaluation was made and the employee might be nowhere close to being eligible for the EITC

    Given that undesirable outcome and because of its length, an employer might prefer not to give that notice but to give an alternative notice, such as:

    You might be eligible for the earned income tax credit, a refundable federal income tax credit for low-income working individuals and families. For information on your eligibility to receive the earned income tax credit, including information on how to obtain Internal Revenue Service Notice 797, IRS Form W-5, or any other pertinent form or instructions, contact the IRS by calling 1-800-829-3676 or through its Web site at www.irs.gov.

    In Spanish:

    Usted puede ser elegible para el crédito de impuestos de ingresos ganados, un crédito de impuestos de ingresos federales reembol-sables para trabaja-dores y familias de bajos ingresos. Para información sobre su elegibilidad para recibir el crédito de impuestos de ganancias ganadas, incluyendo información sobre cómo obtener el Aviso 797, Formulario W-5, del Servicio de Impuestos Interno (IRS por sus siglas en inglés), o cualquier otro formulario pertinente o instrucciones, comuníquese con el IRS, llamando al 1-800-829-3676 o a través de su sitio de la Web al www.irs.gov.

    You can find a link to frequently asked questions about the EITC at fels.net/find.

    Source: Farm Employers Labor Service, Monthly Newsletter, Vol. 47, No. 11/12, November/December 2017

  • REMINDER – California Minimum Wage Increased On January 1

    Sacramento, Calif., (January 4, 2018) – California’s minimum wage increased for all employers on January 1, 2018. For “small” employers (25 or fewer employees), the minimum wage is $10.50/hr. as of January 1; for “large” employers of 26 or more employees, the minimum wage is $11/hour as of January 1.

    In industries like agriculture where employment fluctuates widely on a seasonal basis, an employer’s headcount can vary between 25 or fewer or 26 or more throughout the year. The Labor Commissioner has issued guidance as to how it views the applicability of the $10.50/hr. minimum wage v. the $11/hr. minimum wage:

    • The “small” employer implementation schedule applies in any pay period in which an employer at no time had more than 25 employees.
    • The faster, “large” employer implementation schedule applies in any pay period in which an employer had 26 or more employees at any time.
    • You may switch back and forth from pay period to pay period, but this entails administrative inconvenience, and perhaps disgruntled employees, claims of Labor Code violations, and lawsuit exposure.

    For questions concerning the minimum wage, contact FELS at 800-753-9073 or info@fels.net.

    Source: Farm Employers Labor Service, FELS eNews, January 2, 2018

  • Survey shows chronic employee shortages on California farms

    Sacramento, Calif., (October 24, 2017) – Across California, farmers and ranchers face chronic problems in finding and hiring qualified and willing people to work in agriculture, according to a survey conducted by the California Farm Bureau Federation.

    The informal survey of Farm Bureau members showed that more than half of responding farmers had experienced employee shortages during the past year. The figure was higher among farmers who need to hire employees on a seasonal basis—69 percent of those farmers reported experiencing shortages. The results are similar to a survey CFBF conducted in 2012.

    “Despite all the efforts California farmers and ranchers have made to find and hire people to work on their operations, they still can’t find enough willing and qualified employees,” CFBF President Paul Wenger said. “Farmers have offered higher wages, benefits and more year-round jobs. They have tried to mechanize operations where possible, and have even changed crops or left ground idle. But employee shortages persist.”

    When asked what actions they have taken in response to employee shortages, farmers participating in the survey most frequently cited increased wages, benefits and additional incentives. Farmers also reported they had used, attempted or investigated mechanization; reduced cultivation activities such as pruning trees and vines; and either planted fewer acres or left some crops unharvested.

    Wenger said he expects farmers to continue offering higher wages and moving toward mechanization, but that the survey results underline the need for action by Congress to improve the existing agricultural immigration program.

    “Only 3 percent of the farmers in our survey said they had used the existing H-2A agricultural immigration program,” Wenger said. “Even though more farmers have tried it, H-2A remains too cumbersome for most. Farmers in California and elsewhere in the country need an improved system to allow people to enter the U.S. legally to work on farms and ranches.”

    Farmers have been forthright about their reliance on a largely immigrant workforce, he said, noting that efforts to hire U.S.-born employees on farms have remained unsuccessful. Wenger said Farm Bureau and other organizations would continue to work with Congress to create “a secure, flexible, market-based agricultural immigration program.”

  • California Congressional Delegation Looks To Solve the Farm Workforce Crisis

    Modesto, Calif., (May 11, 2017) – Two different initiatives by members of the California congressional delegation in the past two weeks show that the state’s elected officials intend to maintain their leadership role in passing legislation to address the farm workforce crisis.

    Four members of the House delegation sent a bipartisan letter to President Donald Trump recently asking that his administration support legislation that would allow agricultural operations to access legal workers when they are needed. Republicans Jeff Denham and David Valadao and Democrats Jim Costa and Jimmy Panetta signed the letter to the President. All four represent districts where agriculture is the economic backbone of the community.

    Last week, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D) introduced a stand-alone bill to address the lack of available workers for agriculture. Newly-elected California Senator Kamala Harris (D) is a cosponsor of this bill that is modeled after the agriculture labor provisions of the Senate comprehensive immigration reform bill from 2013. That bill ultimately passed the U.S. Senate with a large bipartisan majority with the agricultural visa provisions intact. The House, however, never took up the bill so that was yet another opportunity to provide a solution to the farm workforce crisis that went by the wayside.

    The House letter sends a strong bipartisan message to the White House asking for help to solve the farm workforce crisis. WUD thanks Representatives Denham, Valadao, Costa and Panetta for bringing this top priority issue for California dairy producers to the attention of the new administration. We also thank Senator Feinstein for her continued leadership on the issue and for raising the profile of the farm workforce crisis by introducing another bill. We look forward to working with her and Senator Harris on future legislation that would provide legal status for our current workers, access to year-round workers for jobs like those on dairies and access to legal new workers when they are needed in the future. There is no higher priority for our industry than passing federal legislation to solve the farm workforce crisis.