Big I Virginia E-News

We have heard from a number of agents, asking for more information on the CTA and what, if anything is required for them to be compliant when the reporting period takes effect. Many small businesses in the United States will have to report information about their beneficial owners, essentially the individuals who ultimately own or control the business. They will have to report the information to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. As originally crafted, insurance agents were included in this reporting requirement. However, the Big “I" was successful in securing an exemption for independent agents and brokers by successfully arguing that insurance producers already provide this beneficial ownership information to state regulators and that the additional burden of providing it to the federal government would be duplicative and unnecessary. The Big “I" was the only producer group that advocated on behalf of agents and brokers to exclude them from this new onerous requirement. When FinCEN released their final rule, they adopted the insurance-producer exemption, and specifically noted that they were persuaded by the argument that the Big “I” made.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas just issued its ruling invalidating the entirety of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) overtime rule. As you’ll recall, this rule was finalized in April and updated the minimum annual salary threshold that determines overtime pay eligibility under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

 

In light of Judge Jordan’s ruling, the minimum salary threshold is once again set to $35,568, and the threshold for highly compensated employees is set to $107,432. 

 

DOL may appeal the decision to the 5th Circuit, but a new DOL in two months under the Trump administration will almost certainly abandon its defense of the rule. This does not prevent the DOL under a Trump administration from issuing a rule at some point, updating the salary thresholds (to a lesser extent), which was done under the first Trump administration.

A former employee of a propane supplier has been charged in the death of a volunteer firefighter who died while responding to a house explosion in Sterling, Virginia in February, officials said this week. Roger Bentley was indicted Monday on charges of involuntary manslaughter and unlawful release of hazardous materials, Loudoun County Fire and Rescue said in a statement.