COVID-19 Update July 13, 2021

Although the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC) is expiring at the end of 2021, there’s still time for eligible businesses to claim the credit, if they haven’t already. The credit can be claimed on amended payroll tax returns as long as the statute of limitations remains open, which is three years from the date of filing.

Employers should note that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will remain in full effect following another recent U.S. Supreme Court decision rejecting a challenge to the health care law’s individual mandate. The high court held in a 7-2 decision on June 17 that Texas and other states challenging the law did not have a legal right to sue.

Furthermore, the US Supreme Court also recently ruled that individuals who suffered purely technical violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act’s (FCRA) procedural and notice provisions with no actual disclosures to third parties or other evidence of harm do not have standing to pursue FCRA claims despite the availability of statutory damages. The case arose from class representative Sergio Ramirez’s experiences at a car dealership in February 2011. Mr. Ramirez filed a putative class action in February of 2012 against TransUnion claiming that it violated the FCRA by failing to follow reasonable procedures to ensure that the accuracy of the OFAC alerts to avoid false-positives, disclose to the class members their entire credit reports, and provide a summary of FCRA rights enclosed with the OFAC alert correspondence to class members.

As the pandemic subsides and many employees return to the worksite, some workers are resisting and inundating HR with accommodation requests. These requests must be handled on a case-by-case basis, even if the requested accommodations all are for continued remote work.

Businesses can create policies with different mask and social-distancing rules based on inoculation status, but attorneys say they should tread carefully and be very cautious when they make these distinctions because they can invite unlawful discrimination. Moreover, misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines has proliferated across the Internet in recent months, with false rumors about dangerous side effects, surveillance and other conspiracies. This has had an impact on vaccination rates, with 1 in 4 Americans saying they are not planning to get vaccinated.

If you have questions on policy changes as COVID-19 rates go down, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our team at Delta for guidance.