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Paul E. Starkman

Chicago Partner Paul Starkman is quoted in the May 17 online issue of Business Insurance on the expected rise in discrimination claims based on alleged violations of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act or GINA.  The article is entitled Discrimination claims rising in the wake of genetic bias law.  Paul also provided his thoughts on GINA claims in an article that appeared in the November 23 issue of the publication.

Click here to read the 5/17/10 article

Click here to read the 11/23/09 article

E. Jason Tremblay

Chicago Partner E. Jason Tremblay recently obtained the dismissal of a series of federal civil rights and public accommodation claims filed against a national seminar group.  The plaintiff was an individual who attended a seminar being presented by the seminar group at a local Chicago hotel.  After the plaintiff became disruptive, she was removed from the seminar and, within days, filed a federal complaint demanding millions in damages.  She alleged that she was discriminated against and denied the full enjoyment of a place of public accommodation based on her race, religion and disability.  Highlighting the deficiencies in her complaint, as well as the complete lack of any facts to illustrate that her removal from the seminar had anything to do with her race, religion or disability, Mr. Tremblay  moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s complaint.  In dismissing plaintiff’s complaint with prejudice and denying her leave to file an amended complaint, the federal district court stated that her allegations were so deficient that any amendment would be futile.  Considering that plaintiffs are generally granted numerous times to replead their complaint, this was a significant and cost-effective victory for the client.

Paul E. Starkman

Chicago Partner Paul Starkman, published an article in Chief Executive Magazine. The article appeared on the May 3 Online Exclusives edition. The article, “What You Need to Know about Monitoring Employees’ Off-Duty Social Networking Activity” examines the effect of social networking on employers, and the risks involved.

Click here to read the full article.

What You Need to Know about Monitoring Employees’ Off-Duty Social Networking Activity

Extension of enhanced small business expensing (Section 179). The new law gives a one-year lease on life to enhanced expensing rules, which allow qualifying businesses the option to currently deduct the cost of business machinery and equipment, instead of recovering it via depreciation over a number of years. For tax years beginning in 2010, the maximum amount that a business may expense is $250,000, and the expensing election begins to phase out when a business buys more than $800,000 of expensing-eligible assets. These dollar limits are the same as those that were in effect for 2008 and 2009.

Payroll tax holiday and up-to-$1,000 credit for employers who hire unemployed workers. To help stimulate the hiring of workers by the private sector, the new law exempts any private-sector employer that hires a worker who had been unemployed for at least 60 days from having to pay the employer’s 6.2% share of the Social Security payroll tax on that employee for the remainder of 2010. A company could save a maximum of $6,621 if it hired an unemployed worker and paid that worker at least $106,800—the maximum amount of wages subject to Social Security taxes—by the end of the year. As an additional incentive, for any qualifying worker hired under this initiative that the employer keeps on payroll for a continuous 52 weeks, the employer is eligible for an additional non-refundable tax credit of up to $1,000 after the 52-week threshold is reached, to be taken on their 2011 tax return. In order to be eligible, the employee’s pay in the second 26-week period must be at least 80% of the pay in the first 26-week period.

Workers hired after the date of introduction of the legislation (Feb. 3, 2010) are eligible for the payroll tax forgiveness and the retention bonus, but only wages paid after the date of the new law’s enactment receive the exemption for payroll taxes.

Here are some additional features of the new hiring incentive:

• The tax benefit of the new incentive is immediate. It puts money into a business’ cash flow immediately, since the tax is simply not collected in the first place.
• The tax benefit generally applies only to private-sector employment, including nonprofit organizations—public sector jobs are generally not eligible for either benefit. However, employment by a public higher education institution would qualify.
• There is no minimum weekly number of hours that the new employee must work for the employer to be eligible, and there is no maximum on the dollar amount of payroll taxes per employer that may be forgiven.
• For workers that would otherwise be eligible for the “Work Opportunity Tax Credit,” the employer must select one benefit or the other for 2010—no double dipping.
• An employer can’t claim the new tax breaks for hiring family members.
• A worker who replaces another employee who performed the same job for the employer is not eligible for the benefit, unless the prior employee left the job voluntarily or for cause.
• For the hiring to qualify, the new hire must sign an affidavit, under penalties of perjury, stating that he or she has not been employed for more than 40 hours during the 60-day period ending on the date the employment begins.
• The incentive is not biased towards either low-wage or high-wage workers. Under the measure, a business saves 6.2% on both a $40,000 worker and a $90,000 worker.
• The payroll tax holiday does not apply with respect to wages paid during the first calendar quarter of 2010, but the amount by which the Social Security payroll tax would have been reduced under the payroll tax holiday provision during the fist calendar quarter is applied against the tax imposed on the employer for the second calendar quarter of 2010.
• The Act creates a similar new set of rules permitting a payroll tax holiday for railroad retirement tax purposes.
• The credit for retaining qualifying new hires is the lesser of $1,000 or 6.2% of the wages paid by the taxpayer to the retained worker during the 52-consecutive-week period. Thus, the credit for a retained worker will be $1,000 if, disregarding rounding, the retained worker’s wages during the 52-consecutive-week period exceed $16,129.03. However, the credit is not available for pay not treated as wages under the Code (e.g., remuneration paid to domestic workers).

Direct payment option for certain tax credit bonds. State and local governments have the ability to issue special purpose tax credit bonds for school construction, energy conservation and renewable energy. The federal government subsidizes these tax credit bonds by providing investors in these bonds with a federal tax credit in place of interest that would otherwise be payable on the bond. In lieu of providing investors with federal tax credits, the new law allows issuers of qualified school construction bonds, qualified zone academy bonds, clean renewable energy bonds, and qualified energy conservation bonds to elect to receive a direct payment from the federal government equal to the amount of the federal tax credit that would otherwise be provided for these bonds.

Revenue offsets. To pay for the tax incentives, the Act includes revenue offsets consisting of: (1) a comprehensive set of measures to reduce offshore noncompliance by giving IRS new administrative tools to detect, deter and discourage offshore tax abuses; and (2) a three-year delay (through 2020) of implementation of worldwide allocation of interest—a liberalized rule for allocating interest expense between U.S. sources and foreign sources for purposes of determining a taxpayer’s foreign tax credit limitation.

For more information about the 2010 Hire Act and its implications for your business contact Robert E. McKenzie, Chair of Arnstein & Lehr’s Tax Practice Group.

Additionally, more information about the HIRE Act can be found on our employment law blog, General-Counselor.com. 

Click here to see the latest blog posts regarding the 2010 HIRE Act.

Click here for information about Arnstein & Lehr’s Labor & Employment Practice Group.

Terminating senior executives these days can result in litigation, bad publicity, business disruptions and poor morale among remaining managers, not to mention being grueling ordeals for all sides. Tough economic times require rapid management changes with no time to “paper the file.” Severance packages are shrinking. Age discrimination charges are spiking. What are CEOs, in-house counsel and senior HR executives to do?Get front-line guidance on what works and what pitfalls to avoid when separating high-level employees. Learn from our panel of experienced executives and attorneys who have handled hundreds of executive transitions and successful terminations:

Nancy Karasek, Group Senior Vice President, Human Capital of Cole Taylor Bank, will provide a corporate employer’s approach to management restructurings.

Robert Wilson, President of High Potential, Inc., will share his experience assisting many corporate employers with c-suite executive transitions.

Laurel G. Bellows, Partner, The Bellows Law Group, P.C., will provide the perspective of an attorney who represents executives on the mistakes that companies often make when terminating senior executives.

Paul E. Starkman, the Chair of the Employment Law Practice Group at Arnstein & Lehr LLP, will present an outside counsel’s viewpoint on best practices and how to avoid litigation.

This seminar will provide real-world solutions and front-line advice on protecting your company’s interests when handling the most sensitive executive transitions.

Catherine Hohenzy, with questions at 312.876.7895 or click here to register.
There is no fee for this valuable seminar, but space is limited so reserve your spot now!

April 6, 2010
8:00 a.m. – Registration and networking
8:30 Seminar

Arnstein & Lehr LLP
120 South Riverside Plaza, Suite 1200
Chicago, IL 60606

CLE credits will be offered.*

*CLE credits are for Illinois only. A minimum of 5 people must request credits.

Arnstein & Lehr LLP is one of the country’s oldest and most respected law firms. Since its founding in 1893, the Firm has served clients – large and small – throughout the United States and in many foreign countries. More than a century later, Arnstein & Lehr has established itself as a sophisticated, full-service practice that addresses the diverse and complex needs of its clients with vision, expertise, and a commitment to quality and service.

High Potential Inc. HPi is the premier Executive Development, Coaching and Career Transition firm located in the Chicago Loop. Our pragmatic approach has proven to be both effective as well as cost-efficient, and the personalized counsel of our experienced executive development staff has been highly praised. We offer our clients executive Coaching and Development services from our three main areas of practice:
- Executive Coaching
- Executive Assessment/Talent Identification
- Career Transition

Employment Law Toolkit

The Employment Law Toolkit is a comprehensive resource highlighting the significant employment and labor issues facing Illinois employers in today’s business environment. It focuses on providing practical and cost-effective suggestions on how to avoid employment and labor-related liability and comply with many state and federal laws facing employers.

Arnstein & Lehr Partner and member of the firm’s Labor & Employment Practice Group, E. Jason Tremblay, authored the handbook, which is in its second edition.  To request a complimentary copy click here.

Monitoring Employees' Off-Duty Conduct on the Internet

Blogging, twittering, and use of other social networking media, such as Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, etc., are all becoming more popular each day, as is posting videos on YouTube, and otherwise posting information and images on the Internet. As such, employers are increasingly becoming interested in monitoring employees’ off-duty Internet activity. But what are the risks and rationales involved of doing so?

The faculty of this 90-minute audio seminar will examine recent examples of how employees’ off-duty but work-related Internet activity has severely damaged the companies they worked for (example: the infamous YouTube food-handling posting by two Domino’s Pizza employees); how employers are using Facebook and other sites to screen applicants; and how companies are trying to safeguard confidential information, deal with cyber-slander, and improve worker productivity by tapping into their employees’ use of this burgeoning technology. The panel includes an in-house counsel from a tech-savvy company, an expert on social networking media, an outside counsel who has advised companies about monitoring employees’ off-duty Internet usage, and an employee-side attorney who has litigated cases arising out of after-hours social networking.

The Live Webcast
Thursday February 25, 2010
12:oopm – 1:30pm Central

Paul Starkman, Chair of Arnstein & Lehr’s Labor & Employment Law Practice Group, is the Planning Chair for this ALI-ABA webcast. 

Click here to learn more about the program and to register.

Paul Starkman 2009 Media Coverage Summary