EMERGENCY RULES
Effective Date of Rule: Immediately.
Purpose: To assign unemployment tax rates to professional employer organizations and their client employers beginning January 1, 2008.
Statutory Authority for Adoption: RCW 50.12.010 and 50.12.040.
Under RCW 34.05.350 the agency for good cause finds that state or federal law or federal rule or a federal deadline for state receipt of federal funds requires immediate adoption of a rule.
Reasons for this Finding: See ESS [ESSB] 5373, section 10, effective January 1, 2008. The department must determine the 2008 unemployment tax rates and mail them to employers. Effective January 1, 2008, professional employer organizations and their client employers must be assigned tax rates based on their own experience. The emergency rule is needed to determine their 2008 tax rates. A permanent rule has been proposed but will not be effective in time to determine tax rates and mail tax rate notices prior to January 1, 2008.
Number of Sections Adopted in Order to Comply with Federal Statute: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0; Federal Rules or Standards: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0; or Recently Enacted State Statutes: New 1, Amended 0, Repealed 0.
Number of Sections Adopted at Request of a Nongovernmental Entity: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0.
Number of Sections Adopted on the Agency's Own Initiative: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0.
Number of Sections Adopted in Order to Clarify, Streamline, or Reform Agency Procedures: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0.
Number of Sections Adopted Using Negotiated Rule Making: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0; Pilot Rule Making: New 0, Amended 0, Repealed 0; or Other Alternative Rule Making: New 1, Amended 0, Repealed 0.
Date Adopted: October 26, 2007.
Karen T. Lee
Commissioner
(2)(a) This subsection applies to professional employer organizations and client employers which have a coemployment relationship as of January 1, 2008.
(b) Except as provided in (d) and (e) of this subsection, the tax rate for professional employer organizations and client employers shall be determined on the basis that the client employer transferred from the professional employer organization effective January 1, 2008. A client employer's proportionate experience (benefits charged and taxable payroll) for the entire first quarter beginning January 1, 2008, shall transfer to the client employer. On or after January 1, 2008, experience shall transfer to a client employer regardless of whether the professional employer organization was the base year employer prior to that date.
(c) The client employer's tax rate shall remain unchanged for the remainder of the rate year in which the transfer occurred.
(d) Client employers that are qualified employers under RCW 50.29.010 or are delinquent under RCW 50.29.025 (2)(c)(i) and that joined a professional employer organization after the computation date of July 1, 2007, shall be assigned their own tax rate for 2008 as if they had not joined the professional employer organization. Any experience from July 1, 2007, to December 31, 2007, assigned to the professional employer organization for those client employers shall transfer to the client employer for purposes of setting future rates.
(e) If an employer is registered with the department and has its own tax rate, but is also a client employer for purposes of some of its employees, it shall keep its own tax rate for 2008 and that rate shall apply to all its employees. Any employees of a client employer that is in a coemployment relationship with a professional employer organization shall be considered a branch account under the registered employer.
(f) Beginning on January 1 of the year after the transfer, the client employer's tax rate for each rate year shall be based on a combination of:
(i) The client employer's experience with payrolls and benefits; and
(ii) The experience assigned to the professional employer organization which is attributable to the client employer, based on the percentage of employees transferred as of January 1, 2008, regardless of the date the client employer joined the professional employer organization.
(g)(i) The professional employer organization's tax rate on any payroll retained by the professional employer organization shall remain unchanged for the remainder of the year in which the transfer occurs.
(ii) Beginning on January 1 of the year after the transfer, the professional employer organization's tax rate for each rate year shall be based on its experience with payrolls and benefits as of the regular computation date for that rate year excluding the experience that has been attributed to client employers.
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