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Employee Benefits Explained

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Whether youve just started a new business or youre simply an employee in a new job trying to understand employee benefits and how they relate to your tax obligations, this post is designed to answer some of the questions you might have and clear up exactly what employee benefits are, what the advantages are and how to make them work for you. Accountants and other tax professionals can definitely help you further with your specific situation, and it is a good idea to seek advice in order to make the most of your benefits.

What Are Employee Benefits?

Employee benefits, put simply, are any non-wage compensation an employee receives on top of a cash salary. Things like health insurance, discounted products, a work car, phone or salary sacrificing agreement are all employee benefits. These are often called fringe benefits or perks and are non-monetary ways that an employer can make a position within the company more attractive.

Salary Sacrificing

Salary Sacrificing is an agreement an employee enters into with their employer which sees a portion of their total wages being used in certain areas specified by the employee. For example, an employee can choose to have a insurance premiums, a certain amount of rent, a leased vehicle repayments or credit card repayments taken care of by his or her employer under a salary sacrificing agreement. These are most popular in not-for-profit organisations as the salary sacrificed portion of wages is not taxed.

According to the ATO, there should always be a written agreement when it comes to salary sacrificing:

It is advisable that you and your employer clearly state and agree on all the terms of any salary sacrifice arrangement. The contract is usually in writing, but may be a verbal one. If you enter into an undocumented salary sacrifice arrangement, you may have difficulty establishing the facts of your agreement. Subject to the terms of any contract of employment or industrial agreement, employees can renegotiate a salary sacrifice arrangement at any time. Where you have a renewable contract, you can renegotiate amounts of salary or wages to be sacrificed before the start of each renewal.
It is important to understand employee benefits regardless of whether you are an employer or an employee. A tax accountant can advise you as to how to make the arrangement work best for both parties, and can help you devise a mutually beneficial program.

Utopian Society Is Not Ideal

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Among the discoveries that occurred then was that of the New World by European explorers, and the curiosity concerning these voyages of exploration plus the advent of the printing press meant that printed records of the Renaissance explorations were [soon] everywhere available, and thus Utopia as a product of this exploratory context is undeniable. This is apparent in that its central character is a sailor and that his impressions of the imaginary island of Utopia constitute most of Mores text, which is a cross between travel narrative and social satire. The above quotation from Utopia depicts the Utopian lifestyle, one that has benefits and drawbacks, and the references to work, corruption, and poverty highlight key aspects of any debate considering whether or not one would like to live in Mores Utopia.

The above extract begins with the lack of distractions that might otherwise keep Utopians from their work, but the use of evading and usual convey the familiarity and routine that accompanies employment in Utopia. Everyone has a job, which is a comforting thought in light of the levels of unemployment and the resultant poverty existing in sixteenth- and twenty-first- century England. Elsewhere, we learn that Utopians, of both sexes, are guaranteed work that is suited to both ability and interest: of the other foresaid crafts every man learneth one. And the women [] and if any person [] be desirous to learn also another, he [] occupieth whether he will. However, this employment system is very regimented. Each day begins at four oclock in the morning and consists of three hours of work, followed by lunch and a two hour break, then another three hours of work, then supper, and then everyone goes to bed at eight oclock, and eight hours they give to sleep. In this light the Utopians strict workdays seem more like that of prisoners than of citizens of a democratic nation like Utopia purports to be.

The extract also lists the lack of distractions and vices in Utopia, such as alehouses, brothels, hiding places, and places for secret meetings. Clearly, the rulers of Utopia recognise alcoholism and adultery as dangerous threats to social order, and the absence of opportunities for drunken and licentious behaviour is evidence of the importance of strong family and marriage bonds in Utopia, or in other words, More [] makes family life the most important institution among the Utopians, with adultery being a potentially capital offence. Yet in spite of this firm image of family and marriage, the words no hiding places, no [] secret meetings and in full view of all convey a sense of exposure or surveillance. The latter quotation highlights the Utopians lack of privacy, which seems a high price to pay in order to be perceived as behaving in a respectable way. Thus, there seems to be very little choice but to conform to social rules.

The final sentence of the above extract paints a very attractive picture of the quality of life of the average Utopian in the fact that it there seems to be no poverty on the island. This is apparently because everyone share[s] everything equally, which refers to the Utopians distribution of private property, as is described elsewhere in the book: this they do freely without any benefit, taking nothing again of them to whom the things is given [] So the whole island is as it were one family or household. The Utopian distribution of wealth ensures that there is no poverty or beggary in Utopia and this is an admirable thing, which thus also criticises contemporary attitudes to material possessions, or in other words: Utopians not only do without money but also despise [] the symbols of wealth to which Europeans were so attached. However, such a system does not tolerate individuals desire for personal possessions and this intrudes on ones personal freedom, and so if this were enforced in a real community certainly many would resent having to give up such personal possessions and privileges.

In conclusion, Mores Utopia with its guarantee of jobs and its lack of vices and poverty has many attractions, but it is doubtful that any modern person would want to live there in light of its regimented schedules and its demands on our personal freedoms and possessions. Moreover, Utopia clearly criticises the contemporary social values and practices of Mores time, and in this sense it is difficult to come to any certain judgements as to how seriously More meant the book as a blueprint for a realistic alternative society.

Changing Employment Scenario In India

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India was hit by the IT boom a couple of years back and a lot of young college graduates started taking up jobs with these companies because it was easy to get jobs in these companies compared to the government sector. However, it did not take long for these people to realize that the private firms are not much concerned about the welfare of their employees; the only thing that they are concerned about is profit.

It was during this time that the government bank jobs in India regained their popularity and a lot of people started leaving these private companies to apply for government jobs. During this time the government also realized that it needed to make a couple of changes in the whole employment system so more people could get employed with government departments.

The Ministry of human resource and development conducted a couple of camps throughout the country in different colleges and universities to find out ways to increase employment opportunities. It did not take him long to realize that almost all government vacancies in India were available in the metropolitan cities; there were very few vacancies in the rural areas. The Ministry submitted a report to the central government and the latter chalked out a plan to put things in order.

The Indian government took a most important step to increase employment opportunities throughout the country and it was the dissolution of a number of trade unions across diverse industry verticals.

Prior to the Indian government taking any positive action, different trade unions across the country had a lot of power in their hands. Some sectors such as public transport, licensing departments, and the road construction departments had a lot of employees who were not under the direct payrolls of the government. These contract employees used to work on daily wages under government appointed contractors and had absolutely no job security. And most of the cases it was the trade unions who decided whom to employ and whom to reject.

The government was basically concerned about getting the job done; not the process through which the job was getting done. This fishy system also promoted a lot of corruption in the government departments.
After getting reports from the HRD Ministry, the central government put a complete ban on a lot of trade unions across the country and all those people who used to work as contract employees soon got absorbed into the system.

Oil Field Employment Want To Get An Oilfield Job Faster Spend Some Money

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Most people try to get oil field employment without spending any cash. Unfortunately, there are only a few free methods to look for a job – submitting your resume to Monster, free online job boards, recruitment agencies and your local unemployment office (if you stay in an oil town); and scanning newspaper advertisements for oil job vacancies. With a ratio of 10,000 or more people all chasing the same 10 oilfield jobs, your chances of success are pretty poor.

Most of the people competing with you to chase for an oilfield job are not willing to spend any money. They are:

Afraid of scams

Stingy cheapskates

No money to spend

Ignorant of how the world really works

They think they are entitled to a job, so someone should give them one even if they don’t do anything to earn it

If you are doing the same things that everyone else is doing, and not getting any interviews, it is foolish to continue following the crowd. You have to seriously think about doing things that most job-seekers do not do. Firstly, do you have a good resume and cover letter suitable for jobs in oil field? Someone with 20 years of relevant experience can put together a slapdash resume and still get interviews. But a recent high school or college graduate does not have that same luxury. Don’t you think spending $50 to get a professionally written resume is worth the money?

Secondly, do you know that getting an oilfield job is a numbers game? This is especially the case when there is a recession. The more resumes you send out, the better your chance of a successful interview. Experience shows that for every 30 job applications an experienced guy submits, he will get three to six interviews. Depending on how greedy or competent he is, every 5 interviews he attends will get him at least one or two job offers.

In good times, sending out 10 resumes using only the free online job boards like Monster will get you one or even two job offers (as long as you don’t flub the job interview). But in tough times, you may need to send 100 to 200 resumes to get a decent offer for jobs in oil field. How many resumes have you sent out so far – 10, 50, 200? The person who sent out 200 resumes is much more likely to get hired for oil field jobs. But relying only on job boards and newspaper advertisements, it is very hard to see how you can send out even 100 resumes quickly. Even if you look on the internet, it is difficult to find the email address of the human resource departments for oil companies – especially the smaller oil service contractors who do the bulk of the hiring. The situation gets worse when you consider that many small companies do not have a website.

You have spend money to get all these contact phone numbers, postal addresses and email addresses:

Order the membership directories of trade associations in the oil industry

Order the membership directories published by business associations/bureaus

Buy the Yellow Pages from the telephone companies

If you want to save time and effort, you can try paying one of the resume submission companies who specialize in the oil and gas industry. They will send your resume to hundreds or even thousands of oil companies. Not all of them are good – you’ll have to do some research to find out which ones are reliable and can do a good job.

Getting hired for oil field employment fast, means doing more than what all your competitors are doing. If you follow the crowd like a lemming, you’ll join them when they go over the cliff. Is that what you want?

Truck Drivers Running A Dac Background Check On Themselves

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DAC report, Dak, DAQ – I’ve seen it spelled many different ways and I’ve heard it called by these names and other names that may have been spoken (yelled actually) in French.
Regardless of how it’s spelled or what it is called, the “DAC Report” is employment performance information sent by member motor carriers to HireRight, formerly known as USIS, formerly known as DAC Services. Trucking companies send this information when a driver’s employment/contract ends.
Professional drivers should understand the above paragraph-many drivers don’t.

1. The information on the DAC report is primarily employment information (although driving crashes/incidents and past driving license information can be listed). You will not see speeding tickets, driving license suspensions, criminal record information or credit history on a “DAC Report.” MVRs, Criminal Record Histories and Credit Reports are reports that may be delivered by DAC-but they are not DAC Reports.

2. Not all companies belong to DAC. It is a private company, not a government agency or contractor and use of DAC by employers is voluntary. As such, there are tens of millions of driving employments not stored by DAC. This can be good if you have a particularly bad reference, or it can be bad news if you have good experience and want a potential employer to see it quickly so you can go to work faster.

3. DAC reports are not a “running tally” of employment-member trucking companies will only submit information to DAC upon termination of employment. Let’s say you have been working for 3 years for an employer that is a member of DAC. Still employed, you decide to look for another job. Your 3 years’ of experience will not show up on the DAC Report for potential employers to see.

The DAC Report does contain the following categories of information:
Identification of Driver. (Name, SSN, DOB)
Identification of Contributing company (Address and phone number) and date contributed
Period of Service (Month/year)
License Number
Eligibility for rehire
Reason for leaving (e.g., driver quit or discharge, etc.)
Status (e.g., owner operator, company driver, etc.)
Driver Experience (e.g., single driver, team, etc.)
Equipment Operated (e.g., reefer, dry box, etc)
Loads Hauled (e.g., general commodity, etc)
Work Record (e.g., satisfactory, cargo loss, etc.)
A separate section of the report contains accident/incident information. It is divided into DOT recordable and non-DOT recordable information. DOT recordable records contributed by employers will contain accident details as stored in the accident register. Non-DOT recordable accidents may contain details (date, short description, etc) if provided by the past employer.
It will also be indicated whether this particular company stored DOT drug and alcohol testing information with USIS. If the information is stored, the potential employer must send a written release to USIS to get the actual drug and alcohol results.

The point of all this for the professional driver is not an academic exercise. When you need a job, sooner is better–and it’s important to understand what potential employers will see and the sources of the information. You need to review all the information a potential employer will see. You need to review it for accuracy and give yourself some time for correction if needed. To do that, you need to know the source of the information and what it may contain.