#legal
Legal considerations for business finance and accounting compliance
Section 15(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act bars shipping goods produced in violation of minimum wage, overtime, or child labor rules — and the hold reaches buyers, distributors, and lenders, not just the employer. Here is how a hot goods hold unfolds, why the good-faith purchaser defense requires a written assurance obtained before the purchase, and the payroll recordkeeping that keeps inventory shippable.
A personnel file should hold job records only — medical documents, Forms I-9, and investigation notes belong in separate files. Practical rules for a five-file system, state access deadlines, and the stacked retention periods: EEOC one year, FLSA payroll three years, and I-9s three years after hire or one year after termination, whichever is later.
California SB 351 took effect January 1, 2026, barring private equity and management companies from controlling clinical decisions at medical and dental practices. Because the violations it targets — percentage-of-collections management fees, clinician payroll in the MSO, patient revenue landing outside the PC — are all visible in the general ledger, compliance is largely a bookkeeping project. Here are seven ledger fixes to make now.
Filing IRS Form 5768 swaps the undefined "substantial part" lobbying test for a formula — 20% of the first $500,000 of exempt purpose expenditures, sliding down to a $1 million cap, with grassroots lobbying limited to 25% of that. A single-year overage costs a 25% excise tax, not your exemption.
The March 2026 DOJ settlement caps Ticketmaster service fees at 15% of face value at Live Nation amphitheaters, limits venue exclusivity deals to four years, and guarantees rival ticketing access — while the FTC's all-in pricing rule already binds every ticket seller. A practical guide for independent venues and promoters on rebuilding per-ticket math, ASC 606 principal-vs-agent revenue calls, settlement-sheet reconciliation, and the seven contract terms to renegotiate now.
No federal law sets private-sector pay frequency, so each state sets its own floor — New York requires weekly pay for manual workers, North Carolina permits monthly, and Florida sets no private-sector minimum. This guide covers the four state buckets, lag-time caps such as California Labor Code section 204, per-employee penalties, and how to change a payroll schedule without delaying wages.
Georgia's SB 553 (Act 472) rewrote Chapter 14 contractor licensing effective July 1, 2026 — one year of experience now means 2,000 documented hours, license lending is explicit grounds for discipline, and advertising regulated trade services without a license counts as evidence of unlicensed practice. A record-keeping checklist for electrical, plumbing, HVAC, low-voltage, and utility shops.
Illinois's Artificial Intelligence Safety Measures Act, signed July 6, 2026, requires frontier AI developers with over $500M revenue to publish catastrophic-risk frameworks, pass annual independent audits, and report safety incidents within 72 hours starting January 1, 2028. This guide breaks down the five obligations, audit costs of $25,000–$150,000+, and a 16-month preparation timeline for startups.
Section 7 of the NLRA protects non-union employees who discuss pay and working conditions together online, and the NLRB's Stericycle standard presumes overbroad handbook rules unlawful — here's how small employers write a social media policy that holds up.
Under the FLSA, on-call hours are paid when employer restrictions keep an employee from using the time freely — the "engaged to wait" test. This guide covers the control factors investigators weigh, sleep-time rules for 24-hour shifts, how flat on-call stipends raise the overtime regular rate, and state rules like California reporting-time pay and city predictive-scheduling ordinances.
On January 1, 2026, at least six states — Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, Vermont, and Washington — began enforcing bans or reporting rules on products with intentionally added PFAS, and the laws reach anyone who sells or distributes covered goods, not just manufacturers. A state-by-state guide for retailers covering affected categories, supplier certifications, ship-to-state segmentation, and the bookkeeping for compliance costs and inventory write-downs.
Whether lawsuit settlement money is taxable depends on what the payment replaces. Compensatory damages for physical injury or sickness are tax-free under IRC Section 104(a)(2), while punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, back pay, and emotional-distress awards without physical harm are taxable. Learn how the attorney-fee gross-income trap, W-2 versus 1099-MISC reporting, and settlement-agreement allocation decide how much of the check you keep.
