Human Resource New Hire Reporting in Alaska

December 11th, 2006 Posted by Mark

The original Alaska law for human resource department’s reporting of new hires was changed to make way for the new federal law that was signed into effect during the 1990s. Since then, Alaska employers have had to report their new hires, each and every one of them, to the Child Support Services Division. You have 20 days after the employee’s hiring to do this reporting.

In Alaska, you can use digital forms, to include information from such paper forms as the application, the employee referrals, and the employee paycheck deduction forms, to report the new hire. These digital forms can be submitted to the Child Support Services Division by magnetic tape or computer diskette. In that case, the 20 day window for new hire reporting doesn’t hold for you.

If filing electronically or through a computer diskette, you can submit all of your new hires in batches twice a month. Obviously, this wrinkle in the labor law for new hires helps out major employers more so than the little employers. All employers can also go the old fashioned route and submit the new hire reporting forms via mail or fax.

The pertinent information that you must make sure to include in new hire reporting in Alaska in order to abide by the labor law on the subject are: the new employee’s name, your company name, both of you addresses, your employer federal identification number, the employee’s identification number, their date of birth, and their date of being hired.

It might of course sound odd for an employer to send all of this information into the Alaska Child Support Services Division (unless of course you are running a day care center perhaps). But don’t forget—one of the purposes of this law is to catch scofflaws of child support.

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Alaska Contractor Concerns

November 26th, 2006 Posted by Mark

Alaska contractors, beware, the government could have its target on you. If you don’t follow a new state law involving contractors and insurance, then you could be opening yourself to some fines and other penalties. The new contractor laws are AS 08.18.011 or AS 08.18.025. They are set up to first and foremost protect consumers from contractors who aren’t properly prepared to do their jobs.

These contractor licensing agreements and laws are set up so that contractors have to have proof that they buy liability insurance, to pay for any errors during work that they may caused through their own fault or by accident. This could also include a bond to pay for any problems with their work, as well as workers’ comp insurance if these contractors also have employees.

As a contractor in Alaska, perhaps you are liable to think you can do business without having to worry about laws that folks down in the rest of the United States have to follow. Or perhaps you are running a small operation and don’t have the capital to pay for liability insurance and workers’ comp, as well as a bond.

But the truth is that no matter how far into the outback you work, or how small your operations are, you should consider the value of insurance. Insurance is set up to protect you from the cataclysmic incident, such as if you burn down somebody’s house or business, or if one of your employee’s suffers a career-ending injury. Those kinds of incidents can end your business, unless you pay your insurance premium. Then you can breathe easier.

Another reason to follow these Alaska contractor laws would be simply because the state of Alaska will come after contractors now that don’t. A new bill in the Alaska legislature, House Bill 81, was signed this summer by the governor. It allows the state to fine contractors up to $1,000 for not following the laws on insurance, bonds, and workers’ comp.

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