Client Alerts

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) contraceptive mandate, contained in 2012 agency guidelines fleshing out the ACA “essential health benefit” pertaining to women’s health and preventive services, required most group health plans to provide contraceptive coverage with no cost-sharing, unless the plan sponsor fell within a religious exemption. On October 6, 2017, the Trump Administration issued immediately effective “Interim Final Rules” (the “2017 IFRs”) that “rolled back” that mandate.

Now, however, in two of several lawsuits challenging the new rules, federal courts in California and Pennsylvania have entered nationwide injunctions barring the Administration from enforcing the 2017 IFRs.

This E-News Alert briefly summarizes some of the employee benefits provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “TCJA”) – i.e. the tax reform legislation – recently passed by Congress and expected to be signed by the President into law. Please contact the author of this E-News alert, any member of the Butzel Long employee benefits practice group, or your regular Butzel Long attorney contact for more information.

Congress just passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Act”) that President Trump is expected to sign in the coming days. The Act provides for changes to the tax code that will have far reaching effects for both individuals and businesses.

On Friday, December 15, 2017, Republican leaders in Washington released the final version of their proposal for tax reform. Within a few hours, two Republican senators, who had both opposed previous versions, announced that they were prepared to vote in favor of the final bill. Both houses have now passed the legislation and it is heading to President Trump’s desk for his signature. But what will it mean for tax-exempt nonprofit organizations once it becomes law?

Effective January 1, 2018 the minimum wage in Michigan will increase to $9.25 per hour. This is the result of the graduated increases in the state minimum wage enacted in 2014 by the Michigan Legislature. The minimum wage for tipped employees also increases on January 1 to $3.52 per hour (provided that tips per hour average at least $5.79 since tipped employees must make at least minimum wage when tips are included).

Headline stories from Hollywood to our nation’s capital – with new revelations virtually daily – are setting off alarm bells for employers throughout the country, and for good reason. It is quite likely that the tremendous media attention on the issue of sexual harassment will result in an increase in complaints against employers and potential claims. That, in turn, certainly raises the specter of additional liabilities for employers. But rather than solely viewing the situation as a threat, employers can instead use the current discussion about sexual harassment as an opportunity – an opportunity to ensure their policies are up to date and appropriate, to better educate and train their supervisors and managers, and to display, and in some cases create, a workplace that demonstrates care for its employees--which reflects a non-threatening, comfortable environment, and which promptly and effectively investigates and resolves complaints.

Waymo, Google’s self-driving car spin-off, publically took the lead in the race to bring Level 4 autonomous vehicles to the public on November 8^th when CEO John Krafcik showed a Web Summit conference audience video of modified Chrysler Pacificas moving on public roads in the greater Phoenix area without human drivers. 

On October 31, 2017, the Detroit City Council passed comprehensive amendments to Chapter 22 of the Detroit City Code, Handling of Solid Waste and Prevention of Illegal Dumping, imposing stringent fugitive dust mitigation requirements on owners and operators of Bulk Solid Material Facilities. 

Auto industry groups joined together this week in an unusual display of unity to keep the Trump administration from drastically changing or withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).  The Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association (MEMA), and the American International Automobile Dealers Association (AIADA), joined with several Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) trade associations (Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (AAM), the Association of Global Manufacturers (AGM), and the American Automotive Policy Council (AAPC)).  On October 24, 2017, they launched the “Driving American Jobs” coalition, a grass roots effort enlisting voters to tell Washington:  “Don’t change the game in the middle of a comeback.”

Recent IRS Development

The world of retirement plan maintenance was upended last year when the Internal Revenue Service announced the near-abandonment of its determination letter program for ongoing individually designed qualified retirement plans. A favorable determination letter from the IRS has for several generations been the accepted indicator of a plan’s tax qualification.  For individually designed plans, new or updated letters will no longer be obtainable from the government, and the reliance value of the last letter received by a plan will begin to erode over time. For both tax law compliance and for business reasons, plan sponsors must now find a way to achieve continued tax-qualified status for their plans, and a means of documenting compliance, lacking IRS ruling letters.

President Trump summarized the net result of two executive orders he recently signed in a Cabinet meeting on October 16, 2017, saying that there is “no such thing as Obamacare anymore."

Michigan House Bill 4755, quietly introduced this past June by State Representative Lucido (R-Washington Township), seeks to (i) require notice of the requirement of a noncompete to job applicants, and (ii) outright ban noncompetes for “low-wage” employees.

On Friday, October 13, President Trump announced that he was refusing to certify Iran’s compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“JCPOA”) that President Obama negotiated in 2015 with Iran, Great Britain, France, Germany, the European Union, Russia, and China.  President Trump’s action opens up the possibility that the United States will withdraw from a deal that was designed to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons within the next decade.  Although President Trump has the legal authority to terminate the agreement himself (and has reserved the right to do so in the future), he has turned to Congress to take the next step.  

This E-news alert is to make the public aware that there has been a change in the processing of applications for immigration benefits at the U.S. borders.  The change has to do with attorney representation of the company or an individual.  While there has never been a right to attorney representation at a U.S. Port of Entry, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) historically extended the privilege of attorneys representing their individual or corporate clients, particularly when seeking immigration benefits to classify the clients’ prospective or current employees in L-1 or TN classification under the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). 

On September 12, 2017, the Department of Transportation released revised voluntary guidance for companies developing autonomous technology.  The guidance builds on the 2016 Federal Policy, stressing several safety elements: vehicle system safety, operational design domains, object and event detection, fallback, validation, human machine interface, cybersecurity, crashworthiness, post-crash behavior, data recording, consumer education, and laws.  

Many individuals, corporations, and small-business owners impacted by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma are scrambling not only to protect and rebuild their properties, but also to mitigate their losses by calling on their insurance coverage. Both tasks can be time-consuming and frustrating in the immediate chaos that often follows a natural disaster. The following guidance, in question-and-answer format, is offered to help individual and corporate policyholders pursue insurance coverage for losses suffered from such events.

It took the U.S. House of Representatives less than two days after returning from its August recess to approve on Wednesday by voice vote landmark legislation to clarify and enhance regulation of highly automated vehicles (HAVs). 

The disruptions to the automotive supply chain caused by the cataclysmic events in Texas are likely to continue for some time and become increasingly severe. Even suppliers that are not directly or immediately affected may experience some disruptions to their supply chains as the difficulties encountered by many tier 2 and tier 3 suppliers continue to ripple upward. 

Another Obama-administration employment initiative has been stayed.  On August 29, 2017, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a stay of the EEO-1 pay data collection requirements.  And, just in the nick of time as the reporting period that was to be used as the EEO-1’s “snapshot” period was just a few weeks away (one pay period during the three-month period from 10/1/17 to 12/31/17).

In a report just issued, global consultants PwC ranked Michigan second among all 50 states as a place to invest and manufacture in the aerospace industry.