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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to complicate how employers approach temporary layoffs and furloughs spawned by lost revenues and reduced demands for services. As if navigating the employment-based immigration laws weren’t complicated enough, now employers must balance implementing cost-saving measures with their federal obligations to employer-sponsored migrant workers.
Let me explain: As a cost-saving measure, a company advises its employees that each employee is required to take a certain number of unpaid hours or days off, every week or every month, through the end of this year. If the company employs H-1B workers, this measure potentially runs afoul of the federal laws governing the H-1B worker’s conditions for employment. In the immigration world, this is referred to as “benching.”
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On May 5, 2021, the Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives showed a rare sign of bipartisanship by unanimously passing the Securing a Strong Retirement Act of 2021 – more commonly known as SECURE 2.0. The bill builds on a number of items that were included in the SECURE Act that passed in late 2019 and also includes many new retirement plan features. While a number of similar bills have been proposed since the original SECURE Act was passed, the fact that this bill unanimously passed committee is a good indicator that this one has legs.
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On May 3, 2021, Governor Kevin Stitt signed HB 1060, which amends the Oklahoma Sales Tax Code. Oklahoma levies a state sales tax of 4.5% on the gross proceeds received from all sales of tangible personal property unless otherwise exempt by statute. Sales are also subject to the levy of city and county sales taxes occurring within their boundaries.
Exemptions exist in the Sales Tax Code for certain business-to-business sales between corporations, partnerships or limited liability companies, but are limited to sales pursuant to a merger, reorganization, or dissolution. The signing of HB 1060 creates new exemptions for sales of tangible personal property between “wholly owned subsidiaries of a parent company” and sales between “a parent company and its wholly owned subsidiary.” The exemption would apply to all sales of personal property between these entities, including the renting and leasing of personal property.
Oklahoman
The bank owned by the Citizen Potawatomi Nation has acquired Oklahoma s oldest continually operating state-chartered bank, allowing the tribe to expand its financial services footprint deeper into the Oklahoma City metro area.
First National Bank & Trust (FNB) announced it will acquire MidWest Community Financial Corp. and its wholly owned subsidiary, The First State Bank (FSB). The acquisition represents Oklahoma’s largest mergers and acquisitions transaction in banking since 2016, FNB said.
“The joining of these two historic banking institutions demonstrates that we live in a land of opportunity,” Citizen Potawatomi Nation Chairman John “Rocky” Barrett said. “One bank was born in a tiny farming community in western Oklahoma, and the other began in a doublewide trailer on a gravel parking lot. Both share a common trait accounting for their very uncommon success: dedication to providing the best customer service.
Is an employer liable for the misconduct of its employees at “after hours” gatherings? When a trial court adopted a narrow view of what constituted “the workplace,” an appeals court.