How Payroll is important to a Business

Consider the scenario: your client withhold payrolls taxes from employee wages and plans to deposit them later. He keeps the money apart from your business’s other funds. But, he’s a busy business owner, and has a lot of tasks to deal with. He completely forgets your tax deposit due date, resulting in failure to pay payroll taxes and a late penalty fee from the IRS.

According to the US Department of Justice, about 70% of the annual revenue collected by the IRS comes from payroll taxes. Under reported and unpaid employment taxes account for approximately $72 billion of the U.S. tax gap. That’s why there are consequences when your business fails to deposit payroll taxes.

It is important for taxpayers to understand that the IRS is aggressive in assessing the late payroll penalty. Payroll taxes are the government’s money, and when the taxes are not paid, the government believes those who have not paid are taking its money. The government does not take this lightly and will not relent in its efforts to collect the amounts it is owed. For a business with numerous employees, unpaid trust fund taxes add up quickly, and the penalty consequently assessed against a responsible person can be huge. In addition, even bankruptcy will relinquish the charge.

Even worse, failing to pay payroll taxes can lead to criminal charges. A willful failure to pay over or collect tax is a felony punishable by up to a $10,000 fine or five years in prison, or both. However, the IRS reserves criminal charges for the most egregious cases, usually where the responsible person owned the business and embezzles the money for their own personal gain, rather than situations where an owner or other responsible person in a business that was facing hard times uses the money in an attempt to keep the business afloat. As the cases discussed below show, in a successful criminal trust fund prosecution, the responsible person is usually sentenced to prison time and required to pay restitution.

Don't let your clients run that risk of failing do their payrolls correctly.   Let us, IMACO Insurance, handle the work for your clients the right, and correct way.  For an insurance agency, offering a payroll service is a natural extension of your brand that will provide many marketing benefits.  IMACO is uniquely positioned to offer you a turn-key opportunity that will enable you to offer a payroll service without any additional responsibility for operational or sales activities.  So you can market a broader range of services to prospects and current customers without adding more staff or work.  

Imaco Underwriters can assist you with General Liability.

Imagine this – you are the head of a home cleaning company and after a cleaning project at someone’s house, the homeowner slips and falls because one of your employees did not properly dry the floors after washing them. The homeowner sustains serious injuries and sues your company for the injuries and now you have a heavy lawsuit on your hands.  Another scenario – you are a roofer installing the roof shingles. Then, in an accident, the pile of shingles you are installing falls off to the ground and causes the surrounding property and house massive damage.  In both these cases, an accident has occurred and you’re left with the possibility to pay for the property damage, medical costs, and associated legal fees that could have a devastating effect on your company’s finances.  This is where general liability insurance comes in.  General liability at its most basic form protects the company from third party claims of physical injury and property damage that naturally arise from your business operations.  It covers the cost of your legal defense and any settlement or award should you be successfully sued.  Even if the claims are trivial or baseless, you still have to legally defend yourself against the claim, and general liability insurance is there to cover those costs.   When dealing with business,  you should do all you can to minimize the risk of accident, but it is inevitable no matter how safe you try to be or how many precautions you take.  Negligence, oversight, miscommunication, misunderstandings, or just plain bad luck are all facts of life one must heavily consider especially when dealing as an artisan contractor, janitorial service, or general contractor.

When a general contractor takes on a job, they’ll hand off parts of it to other sub-contractors. The general contractor still has the overall responsibility for legal compliance, safety, quality of workmanship and just about everything else that happens on the job site. General contractors therefore take on a ton of responsibility. With that comes an equal measure of potential liability. That’s why licensed and responsible general contractors carry generally always carry general liability insurance to protect both the contractor and client if something goes wrong. 

Although general liability insurance is not legally required, many jobs, especially on government contracts,  require to provide evidence of liability insurance as part of the qualification process.  Many states require a minimum liability insurance to obtain state contractor licenses. From the employer's/client's side, they would want the peace of mind knowing you have ample resources should an injury or accident occur on their premise especially for those in the contracting businesses.  The work that contractors and subcontractors do can be dangerous. General contractors, electricians, roofers and people who work with power tools or heavy equipment risk far more accidents on the job than say, the average office worker. 

The value of general liability insurance cannot be understated.  Don't risk being penalized for accidents that are out of your control. Imaco Underwriters is among the largest qualified general insurance distributors throughout the nation.  Let us oversee your insurance needs for your clients and let you thrive.

How important is workers' compensation to a business?

Workers' Compensation is a form of insurance that provides medical coverage and wage replacement in case the employee gets injured on the job.  In our modern day and age, it is expected, at the very least, that every business should provide a safe working environment for their employees, ideally free from any risk of injury or illness.  Unfortunately, in the real world, there's always risks, and when accidents do happen workers' compensation exists as a way to not only compensate for the employee's injuries, medical costs, or lost wages but to also protect your business from legal consequences.  The employee waives the right to sue the employer given that they are given the workers' compensation insurance.  As with any type of insurance, especially ones concerning health, the premiums for such policies can oftentimes be significant.  Of course, the cost of such premiums depends heavily on what type of industry the business is practicing in, as one would certainly expect a construction business carries more risk of injury than say, one practicing in an office environment.

Skipping out on providing workers' compensation is illegal in many states.  Workers' compensation insurance is state mandated in 49 out of 50 states in some form or another.  Texas is the only state where worker's compensation is not explicitly required, the exception being workers of companies on contract with government must be covered.  The specifics between each state varies; the workers' compensation laws are not consistent within all the other states.  In most states, all businesses with at least one employee are required to carry the insurance, while states like Alabama and Missouri require on coverage if the business has at least five employees.  Within the state worker's compensation laws not all companies are treated the same.  In Tennessee, for example, companies in the coal and construction field must cover all employees, while all other business are only required to cover if they have more than 4 workers.  In all states, companies are free to choose worker's compensation insurance from a commercial provider, and in most states, some companies may be approved to self-insure their employees.  Lastly in some states Rhode Island and Kentucky, businesses may purchase the coverage through a state-administered fund.

The consequence of not covering workers with workers' compensation is the incurrence of heavy fines and possibly time in jail.  Here in California, if a employer fails to provide workers' compensation, the California Division of Labor Enforcement Agency will step in and issue a stop order and fine the employer up to $10,000.  Additionally if an injured worker files a claim and the employer fails to provide insurance, the employer will be met with a fine of at least $10,000 and upwards to $100,000. 

One of the most important aspects of running a business that many may not know of, is handing the workers' compensation insurance.  It's always better to be on the safe side and secure your workers' compensation insurance so you can have the peace of mind of focusing on the main directives of your company, than running into the unnecessary risk of legal problems.  We here at Imaco Underwriters understand the importance of the balance of cost and service and the choices that could ultimately impact you and your clientele's future.  We are here to help you structure and price submissions so you can help manage the risk of your client's business.