DOSSIER · EMP

Workforce Audits & Exposure

Where employment records are examined — payroll, benefits, classification — and what liability follows.

Brief stack

In this dossier

EMP-05 · 01

Payroll Records and Wage-Hour Audits: What Investigators Examine

8 MIN · EMP

Recordkeeping is the one wage-hour obligation that has no good-faith defense: either the record exists or it does not. This brief sets out what must be kept, for how long, and what an investigator does with it.

FLSA section 11(c) and 29 CFR Part 516 require specified payroll records to be kept three years, with wage-computation records kept two years.
A Wage and Hour investigation typically reviews records, interviews employees privately, and can seek back wages plus an equal amount in liquidated damages.
Missing or unreliable time records shift the practical burden: employees may prove hours by reasonable inference rather than by documentation.

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EMP-06 · 02

ERISA Plan Compliance: Documents, Reporting, and Fiduciary Duties

8 MIN · EMP

Most ERISA failures are administrative rather than financial: a plan running on an insurer's booklet, a summary nobody distributed, or a filing that stopped. This brief maps the obligations and who carries them.

ERISA requires a covered plan to be established and maintained by a written instrument, with a named fiduciary identified as responsible for plan operation.
Participants must receive a summary plan description, and most covered plans file an annual Form 5500 return with related schedules.
Fiduciaries owe duties of prudence and loyalty, must follow plan documents, and must act for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits.

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EMP-07 · 03

Worker Misclassification Audits and Voluntary Settlement Options

8 MIN · EMP

One worker can be an independent contractor for one agency and an employee for another, because each applies a different test. This brief maps the tests, the audit triggers, and the settlement routes that exist.

The IRS applies a common-law control test, the FLSA applies an economic reality analysis, and many states apply a stricter ABC test.
Audits usually begin from a single event: an unemployment claim, an injury, a worker's status-determination request, or an agency information-sharing referral.
The IRS Voluntary Classification Settlement Program and Section 530 relief are real routes, each with strict eligibility conditions that must be met first.

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