Your Questions Answered

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Have a personnel-related or business tax question? Members can get free information from CBIA’s experts. The phone number is 860-244-1900.

Q: A married couple works for us and the wife is pregnant. One of our supervisors thinks spouses who work for the same employer are limited to a combined 12 weeks of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) for the birth of a baby. Is that true? If the wife has complications and needs 10 or 11 weeks for pregnancy-related medical reasons, would the husband get only a week or two when the baby is born?

A: This couple is limited to a combined 12 weeks when they use FMLA for “bonding” with the baby or caring for the baby after the birth. If the wife needs time for pregnancy-related disability either before or after the birth, that time is considered FMLA leave for a serious health condition and is not subject to the limitation for spouses.

Here’s what would happen in your hypothetical scenario: Each of them starts with their own 12-week FMLA allotment. If the mother needs 10 weeks for medical reasons, she would have two weeks left for bonding. If she decides to use those two weeks for bonding, then the father could use up to 10 weeks of his own 12-week allotment for bonding. Together, the mother’s two weeks and the father’s 10 weeks would exhaust their 12-week bonding entitlement. The father would have two weeks remaining for other qualified FMLA purposes.

If the mother needed six weeks rather than 10 for pregnancy-related medical reasons, she would have six weeks to put toward the 12-week bonding entitlement. If she uses those six weeks for bonding, then the father would have six weeks for bonding and six weeks left for other qualified FMLA purposes.

Q: An applicant has presented a driver’s license and an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), a nine-digit number on a document that looks similar to but is not a Social Security card. Is that sufficient documentation for the Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9? Can we legally employ him?

A: An ITIN is not acceptable for establishing either identity or eligibility for employment, both of which are necessary to legally employ someone and which must be documented on the Form I-9.

An ITIN is a tax-processing number issued by the Internal Revenue Service. It’s a nine-digit number that begins with 9 and has a 7 or 8 in the fourth digit — for example: 9XX-7X-XXXX. The IRS issues ITINs to individuals who are required to have a U.S. taxpayer identification number but who do not have, and are not eligible to obtain, a Social Security number. ITINs are issued regardless of immigration status because both resident and nonresident aliens may have U.S. tax return and payment responsibilities. An ITIN does not authorize someone to work in the U.S. You should tell the applicant that his ITIN is not acceptable for employment purposes and that you can’t hire him unless he provides one of the documents listed on Form I-9.

If you’ve already employed someone mistakenly believing an ITIN was acceptable, you should tell the employee that you’ve determined you don’t have acceptable evidence of his or her identity and employment eligibility, and that, unless shown proper documentation, you’ll have to terminate employment. Also check with your accountant about any payroll taxes erroneously filed under an ITIN.

Q: I recently received a letter from the state Department of Revenue Services (DRS) telling me that I have to pay my taxes electronically. Can they force me to do that? I much prefer writing a check and don’t like the idea of giving the DRS access to my account number.

A: The DRS has the authority to require taxpayers to pay their taxes by electronic funds transfer (EFT) if their prior year’s tax liability for a particular tax exceeded a certain threshold. That threshold has been dropping. Currently it’s $50,000, but as of July 1 taxpayers whose prior year tax liability exceeds $10,000 can be required to pay by EFT. If the DRS notifies you that you must pay electronically, you cannot pay by check. If you send a check instead of using EFT, you will not have met your tax obligation in the eyes of the DRS, and you will be subject to a 10% penalty.

But don’t worry: If you authorize the DRS to debit your bank account so you can pay your taxes electronically, the DRS cannot access your account for any other purposes. For more information, see
IP 2003 (25) on the DRS Web site, www.ct.gov/DRS, or call the EFT Unit at at 860-297-4973.