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
(Ch. 112, 2005)