On two separate issues, NFIB helped win changes beneficial to small business.
No More Double-Dipping on Severance Pay and Unemployment Benefits
Legislation sponsored by state Rep. Karen Fann of Prescott (House Bill 2115) ensures that a former employee must exhaust all their severance pay before becoming eligible to receive unemployment benefits and begin drawing down the employer’s reserve account. The new law became necessary due to a recent Arizona court case (Wynn v. Arizona Department of Economic Security) that ruled a worker was due unemployment benefits beginning two weeks after of separation from his job despite receiving a $75,600 lump sum (equivalent to 12 months’ pay) severance from his former employer.
Specifically, the new law clarifies that for unemployment insurance eligibility purposes “severance pay” includes all amounts that an employer pays to an employee due to the employee’s resignation, termination or participation in an exit-incentive program or inclusion in a reduction in force or in consideration for the employee’s release of actual or potential claims for the termination of employment. “Severance pay” does not include any amounts the employer pays for health benefits or pursuant to any employee benefit plan.
One Taxman is Enough, Registrar of Contractors Made to Stay in His Lane
Sen. Gail Griffin of Hereford sponsored NFIB/Arizona-backed legislation that blunts an alarming power grab from the agency charged with licensing contractors. Senate Bill 1160 allows the Registrar of Contractors to suspend or revoke a contractor’s license only after being notified by the Department of Revenue that a licensee has failed to pay taxes collected in the course of doing business as a licensed contractor.
Prior to the session, the Registrar had posted on their website a new condition of licensure or renewal that required contractors to sign over to the agency access to all their state tax records so the Registrar could independently determine if the contractor had paid all their taxes regardless if they were incurred in the course of doing business as a contractor or not. No provision was made for the due process rights afforded to every taxpayer by the Department of Revenue during their audit procedures or for the security of the tax records once obtained by the Registrar. This action by a typically inert state agency is an excellent example in glorious Technicolor of monumental overreach by the bureaucracy asserting enhanced and expanded powers over the public in the absence of a legislative mandate.
