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SCHEDULE OF BILLING RATES FOR ROBIN KRAMER & GREEN, LLP |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
Name |
Accounting |
Tax |
Consulting |
Bookeeping |
Steven M. Green, CPA |
$155.00 |
195.00 |
195.00 |
100.00 |
David J. Kramer, CPA |
n/a |
195.00 |
195.00 |
n/a |
Murray N. Greenburg, CPA, CVA |
155.00 |
195.00 |
195.00 |
100.00 |
Phillip Kramer, CPA |
155.00 |
195.00 |
195.00 |
100.00 |
Stuart A. Katz, CPA, MST |
n/a |
195.00 |
195.00 |
n/a |
Arthur Havsy, CPA |
155.00 |
195.00 |
195.00 |
100.00 |
Mark Cieri |
110.00 |
125.00 |
125.00 |
90.00 |
Luba Ennis, CPA |
140.00 |
180.00 |
180.00 |
95.00 |
Lorraine Hagen |
85.00 |
135.00 |
n/a |
55.00 |
Marlene Sokolow |
n/a |
55.00 |
n/a |
55.00 |
Alanna Wilson |
n/a |
55.00 |
n/a |
55.00 |
Robin Kramer & Green, LLP
425 Commerce Dr.
Ft. Washington, PA
215-641-8300 (O)
215-641-8335 (F)
info@rkgcpa.com
Contact Robin Kramer & Green to discuss your retirement options.
KIM Says...
Finish First Awards: Thanks to all 2007 SPONSORS, including our Title Sponsor, Lafarge. IFCA has updated our web site to reflect the details from this year's event...please visit it @ www.ifcassociation.com. Congratulations again to our 2007 Winners (All Surfaces Plastering, Inc.; Blasz Construction, LLC; Ceilings Inc.; Frank T. Lutter, Inc.; Peter Bradley Construction and Raymond Shoemaker, Inc.). Lafarge's Award went to Allied Interiors. IFCA's 2007 Member of Distinction was presented to Tom Clerkin, Ceilings Inc. This year's current photographs will be on display on our web site by the end of June.
Industry Golf Outing: IFCA's annual Industry Golf Outing is scheduled for Monday, September 10 @ Cedarbrook Country Club. Look for your invitation the first week of August...note that we strictly enforce our cut-off date, which for this year's event, is August 31.
IFCA Membership: If you are not a member of IFCA, please contact the association to discuss membership opportunities. We're always looking to enhance our member benefits and at IFCA we believe we have a lot to offer to union interior finish contractors. Take a look at the list of our members (page 3), they have the best reputations in the industry. Call me @ 610-225-1050.
New Member Benefit—Web Site Reimbursement: As a result of the increased Industry Advancement, the Board of Directors has approved of a new member benefit — Web Site Reimbursement. To learn more about this new member benefit, please contact the association office @ 610-225-1050. Maximum one-time reimbursement is $1,000.
Bond Reimbursement: The association provides bond reimbursement to our members. Our agreement with the carpenters requires a $75,000 bond while the IUPAT bond is tiered based on manpower (1-15 is $30, 000; 16-35 is $40,000; over 35 is $50,000). The maximum reimbursement for members per bond is $1,000. Questions should be directed to me.
Lobbying Services: IFCA has engaged the services of a Lobbyist. Brian Preski, from Wolf Block, came on board with our association in April! We are now featuring a quarterly article from Brian in our newsletter — please refer to page 9 for specific details.
Mini Member Only Golf Outing:: An invitation to IFCA's mini member only Golf Outing was distributed to our members by e-mail. We hope that you can join us for a casual day of golf @ Rivercrest Golf Club on Wednesday, July 18. This event is for members only.
LEGAL NOTES FROM STEVENS AND LEE
Are your I-9s in Order? If not, your business may be at risk for substantial civil and possibly criminal penalties. These tips could help you avoid BIG problems.
Although the I-9 employment authorization verification and anti-discrimination provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) have been in effect for over 20 years, few employers regard I-9 compliance as a priority. This is probably because the consequences of imperfect I-9 compliance have not been considered terribly painful. The likelihood of an employer's I-9 practices coming under government scrutiny has not been high, and the penalties for compliance errors have been perceived as an acceptable cost of doing business when weighed against the efforts necessary to ensure full compliance.
Those days are over.
For a variety of reasons, both Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Department of Labor are focusing to a much greater extent on unauthorized employment and I-9 compliance issues. One only has to read the newspaper (or the press releases posted on the ICE website) to know that managers are now being indicted and arrested on a regular basis for engaging in a pattern of knowingly employing unauthorized foreign nationals or engaging contractors who employ unauthorized foreign nationals.
Needless to say, you do not want your company's name mentioned in future ICE news releases, or in newspaper headlines following a workplace raid. Even putting aside concerns about potential criminal liability, the civil penalty that can be imposed on an employer that knew or reasonably should have known it had hired or employed an unauthorized worker is up to $2200 per worker (higher for subsequent offenses), and the fines for substantive I-9 paperwork errors or missing I-9 forms have also increased. Each substantive error on an I-9 form can now result in a fine of from $110 to $1,100. In fixing the amount of the fine within that range, the government takes into account the employer's size, the seriousness of the violations, evidence of good faith efforts at compliance, and past violations. Note, though, that any missing I-9 forms are likely to be assessed at the upper end of that range regardless of mitigating factors
Increasingly, employers are also receiving so-called "No-Match" letters from the Social Security Administration (SSA). These letters are issued by the SSA and list the Social Security numbers of employees whose names do not match the Social Security numbers reported by the employer on Form W-2. About 150,000 such letters are issued each year. These letters do not by themselves put an employer on notice that an employee does not have work authorization, and an employer is not permitted simply to fire an employee on the basis that his/her Social Security number is listed in a "No-Match" letter. However, ignoring "No-Match" letters leaves an employer open to charges that it should have known it had hired unauthorized workers. The April, 2006 ICE raid on IFCO Systems, the nation's largest pallet services company, and the arrests of seven IFCO managers, was based in large part on the company's failure to take appropriate action in response to repeated "No-Match" letters.
What should you do to protect yourself? Consider the following:
Understand Your I-9 Obligations At a minimum, the person or persons in your company responsible for I-9 compliance should have a working knowledge or better of the government's I-9 "Handbook for Employers" and "The Form I-9 Process in a Nutshell" publications. The Handbook can be downloaded at http://www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/m-274.pdf. The "Nutshell" is an update of the Handbook and can be downloaded at http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/EIB102.pdf. Every human resources office should have ready access to both of these documents. With rare exceptions, a thorough understanding of the information in these publications will be sufficient to enable you to ensure that your company is fulfilling its obligations under IRCA.
Note that a "new" Form I-9 was released last year. It differs from the previous Form I-9 only in its replacement of outdated references to the U.S. Department of Justice and the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) with references to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and USCIS. Until further notice, either version of the form can be used. The link to the new Form I-9 is at http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/i-9.pdf.
Implement a System for I-9 Compliance Ideally, a single individual in your company should be accountable for I-9 compliance. Depending on the size and structure of the company, however, several individuals may necessarily be involved in the process of physically reviewing the documents presented by employees or prospective employees, ensuring that employees and prospective employees have completed the I-9 timely and correctly, correctly completing the employer portion of the I-9, knowing when an I-9 requires re-verification or updating, establishing a system for ensuring that I-9s are re-verified or updated in a timely manner, and ensuring that I-9s are maintained in the proper way for the proper length of time.
Audit Your I-9 Compliance A company’s I-9 forms and procedures should be regularly audited so that any deficiencies can be corrected and do not recur. Few if any employers – yes, including even large law firms -- can claim full compliance, and in the event of government scrutiny, most would face substantial fines and possibly worse. Finding substantive errors on 20% to 40% of an employer’s I-9 forms, in addition to a handful of missing forms, is not uncommon.
The good news is that while past errors cannot be erased, they can be corrected, and a company in full compliance as of the date a government investigator knocks on the door is considerably less likely to face harsh treatment, even if errors had been made in the past. In addition, the mere fact that an employer took it upon itself to identify and rectify errors will tend to go a long way in convincing the government of the employer’s good faith efforts at compliance, and in many cases will enable the employer to avoid any penalties at all. Obviously the auditor, whether internal or external, should be well-versed in the nuances of I-9 compliance. Often there will be no substitute for having I-9 procedures and I-9 forms audited by a lawyer knowledgeable about IRCA, who can also develop or modify the company’s I-9 policies and procedures, train staff, address the use of contractors, and develop appropriate procedures for responding to SSA “No-Match” letters.
Don’t Forget About Contractors and Temps Apart from ensuring that your company has taken the necessary steps to verify that its own employees are employment authorized, it is a wise idea to take reasonable steps to ensure that contractors or employment agencies with which your company does business have done the same. Many employers, including Wal-Mart, have been in the headlines following accusations that they attempted to evade their I-9 obligations by engaging contractors whose employees they knew or had reason to know were not work authorized. One way to demonstrate that your company takes its I-9 obligations seriously is to require contractors and employment agencies with whom your company does business to certify their own I-9 compliance.
Consider the Online Basic Pilot Program for Verifying Employment Authorization Under the Basic Pilot Program, participating employers complete the I-9 in the normal fashion and must then transmit information from the I-9 via the internet to the federal government. The information is then checked against Social Security Administration and USCIS records. The Basic Pilot Program provides employers with a means of confirming whether an applicant is actually work authorized (as opposed to having documents establishing work authorization that appear to be genuine). However, because comprehensive immigration reform legislation now being discussed in Congress may result in an entirely new employment eligibility verification scheme, it may be prudent to wait and see how developments unfold before making a decision to participate in the Basic Pilot Program. More information on the Basic Pilot Program can be found at http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.
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Don’t Ignore Social Security “No-Match” Letters As noted above, the fact that an employee’s Social Security number appears on a “No-Match” letter does not mean that the employee is unauthorized to work in the U.S. and an employee may not be terminated for that reason. There are a number of legitimate reasons for a mismatch, including the use of a married name where SSA does not have a record of the name change. As indicated in the “No-Match” letter itself, the first step is for the employer to check for typographical errors in either the name or number, address any discrepancy with the employee, and if still unresolved, advise the employee to resolve the discrepancy with the local Social Security office and to provide documentation to the employer that the discrepancy has been resolved.
However, stopping there is not enough if the employee fails to follow up (as is typically the case). Both the former INS in a series of letters, and now USCIS in proposed regulations, have indicated that the mismatch letter, in combination with the employee's failure to correct the mistake, is sufficient to put the employer on notice that the employee may be unauthorized to work. Therefore, if the employee has not shown that the mistake has been corrected, the employer should re-verify the employee’s employment authorization by having the employee complete a new I-9. Obviously, a document presented by the employee must not contain the “mismatched” Social Security number. The proposed regulations also require that at least one of the documents presented as part of the re-verification contain a photograph.
FROM A CONTRACTOR'S POINT OF VIEW
The Image of the Union Labor seen through the Eyes of an End User
Recently, during a walk through on a project with a Developer and the Owner, I was questioned as to why several union tradesmen on the job were walking around like they were half dead and also why the same ones had miserable looks on their faces. As I was trying to make excuses for these people it dawned on me that the End User really does take notice of these things. They want to see the people on their projects as enthusiastic and motivated toward completing the job as they are.
Later that day over lunch they asked me if those disgruntled men they saw realized that they were bringing discredit not only on themselves, but to the union that they represented. They went on to say that as owners of the project, they are paying a lot more to have their job done union because they thought that they would get better quality, production, and a more energetic, enthusiastic crew that was interested in helping them achieve thier goals in a timely manner. The conversation continued with the owners comparing the hustle on their open shop jobs, and the lack of it on the union jobs. All in all, they were more than a little disappointed.
Every union tradesman should take a lesson from this. It's all about market share. The union market share continues to shrink, while the open shop gains. If we, as union tradesmen don't begin to impress owners and developers more than our open shop competitors we will continue to lose market share — and market share means jobs.
Every union tradesman must be aware that every time they step on a job, not only is their personal reputation at stake, but the reputation of their union and all union tradesmen. We must strive to improve our image with our skill, our productivity, and our enthusiasm — BECAUSE, believe it or not, the End User is watching.
This article has been submitted to the IFCA office by an IFCA Contractor Member. This is a new feature and it will remain anonymous to provide our members with a chance to write about “topics that they believe are important.” If you wish to submit an article for our next newsletter, please contact the IFCA office (610-225-1050). NOTE: This article was NOT written by IFCA.LOBBYING EFFORTS
Wolf Block .... submitted by Brian Preski, Esquire
I've been asked to write a regular update to keep you informed with the government relations efforts made on the association's behalf in Harrisburg. In this first article, I'd like to take this time to get you familiar with some of the concepts that will pop-up from time to time. Simply put, my effectiveness pales in comparison to the effectiveness of the combined strength of the membership to accomplish its goals.
Although you might not realize it, each one of you is a potential force in both a State Representative's district and a State Senator's district. First, each and every one is a constituent that our elected officials answer to; Second, each of you, in varying degrees, employees other constituents who count on your business to give them jobs and provide for their families; Third, each of you maintains a supplier chain which is made up of more constituents and their constituent employees who rely on your business' success. When necessary we should be ready to mobilize that chain to get our message across to the elected officials. I am not asking that you be ready to leave the jobsite in order to storm Harrisburg, that is my job, but I am asking that you be familiar with your local State Senator and Representative so that if we do ask you to make a call, you know who they are. Each of you can find your local state representative and senator at www.legis.state.pa.us . Once you find out who they are I ask you if they appear at events in which you are attending that you introduce yourself to them and allow them to get to know who you are and what you do. Government relations is a game of interpersonal relationships and the more we secure those relationships before we need them, the more effective our efforts will be.
As for the legislative process, each bill gets introduced in wither the House of Representatives or the Senate. After introduction it is referred to a standing committee of the respective chamber. In the House the majority of bills that concern the association will be referred to the Labor Relations Committee, in the Senate they will be referred to the Labor and Industry Committee. While a bill is in committee we can first assert our influence to have a bill amended with new language, for those bills that just need some minor change; reported to the floor, for bills we want to see become law, or to remain in committee for those bills we want never to see the light of day.
After committee action each bill must be on the respective chambers' calendar for three days, these days are referred to as First Consideration, Second Consideration and Third Consideration. For those bills that we are not happy with the wording we again have an opportunity to have our friends in the General Assembly seek amendments at this point. After this a bill is voted on Final Passage by each chamber and the process begins anew in the other chamber. When a bill starting in the opposite chamber is amended in the other chamber it must return for a vote on Concurrence in the Amendments made by the other chamber, thus giving us yet another opportunity to assert our influence. As you can see there will be multiple times in the life-cycle of a bill for us, or those on the opposite side of us, to make changes to legislation.
That being said our efforts have been successful to date. Senate Bill 726 which deals with residential housing and mechanics liens has been reported from the Senate Labor and Industry Committee with an amendment we supported and currently sits on First Consideration on the Senate Calendar. Efforts to amend last years mechanic's lien law have not moved forward and currently counsel and I are working on a version to bring to the membership to clarify some inconsistencies in the current law.
Also, I have been contacted by the representative of the GBCA to see if there is an agreement we can make that protects our position and addresses their double jeopardy concerns. I will keep you updated on how those discussions turn out.
CALENDAR
June 2007 |
|
06/01 |
Finish First Awards |
06/08 |
DC 21 Graduation |
06/20 |
Finish First Committee Meeting |
July 2007 |
|
07/12 |
Golf Committee Meeting |
07/18 |
IFCA—Member only Mini Golf Outing |
07/31 |
Finance Committee Meeting |
August 2007 |
|
08/03 |
Philadelphia Business Trades Golf Outing |
08/06 |
Board of Directors Meeting |
08/06 |
General Membership Meeting |
SAVE THE DATE: IFCA’s annual Industry Golf Outing is September 10. |
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IFCA
Kimberly A. Clerkin, Executive Director
Valley Forge Office Center
676 E. Swedesford Rd., Ste. 300
Wayne, PA 19087
Phone: 610-225-1050
Fax: 610-225-1052
Email: kimclerkin@attglobal.net
We're on the web at www.ifcaassociation.com