Dusting off the year-end HR checklist is a good sign for most small and medium-sized business owners as 2022 has been one of the most challenging years ever and cannot come to an end quickly enough.
“America’s small businesses can’t catch a break,” Lydia DePillis wrote in The New York Times this summer. “After two years of shutdowns and restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic, they’re straining to keep up with price increases without losing customers to larger competitors.”
If that wasn’t enough to keep business owners up late at night, there was the historically tight labor market and rising interest rates from the Fed.
“They are struggling to keep positions filled as competition for workers remains at a fever pitch,” wrote DePillis. “And just at the moment that many business owners begin to recover and shore up their depleted savings, they’re worried that the Federal Reserve’s medicine for inflation will bring fresh hardship: higher borrowing costs and timid consumers.”
Of course, this is more than just one reporter’s view with the following to consider:
However, the pride of America’s small and medium-sized business owners is their resilience. Thenonprofit Small Business Majority survey released this month shows that “more than 6 in 10 small business owners are optimistic about their business prospects for the next six months.”
The next few months mean a new calendar year, with 2023 on the horizon, and some important housekeeping for business owners.
The final month of the year can be a crazy time for business owners with major winter holidays changing the way employees and customers go about their business during this time.
“While December is a busy time for small businesses trying to end the year on a high note, it should also be a time for introspection and review,” says the U.S. Small Business Administration.
With December 31 signaling the end of the U.S. tax year and many businesses' fiscal year, there are some very important issues to tackle before 2023 begins.
If you wait until Black Friday and turkey leftover sandwiches to organize for the year coming to an end, then you have waited too late, it is best now to prepare by revisiting your “Year-End HR Checklist”.
We would make the old joke about “death and taxes” but, honestly, no business owners find the subject of taxes funny. For your end-year HR checklist, however, taxes and payroll issues take real priority.
Now is the time to check or review:
Michelle DeBella of JumpCloud tells Forbes that now is the time to consult with your tax professionals for year-end decisions.
“Talk to them about opportunities to accelerate deductible expenses or take advantage of capital purchases,” says DeBella.
Some items from last year’s year-end HR checklist no longer apply, such as the expired Employee Retention Tax Credit, but other programs are ongoing such as:
o Is in their first year of employment.
o Is certified as being a member of an eligible group.
o Works at least 400 hours of service for that employer
“This is a one-time credit for each new hire and an employer cannot claim the credit for employees who are rehired,” explains the IRS. “A 25 percent rate applies to wages for individuals with 120 to 399 hours of service. Up to $24,000 in wages may be considered in determining the work opportunity tax credit for certain qualified veteran targeted groups.”
Make sure you are putting the “HR” in that end-year 20222 HR checklist by doing the following:
Contact Partners HR today for insight and reliable guidance on all HR matters including help ticking off all the boxes on your end-year 2022 HR checklist.