DOL Publishes Revised Guidance on the Families First Coronavirus Response Act
This weekend, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) released a revised and updated set of Questions and Answers (“Q&A”) regarding the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA”). As we’ve summarized in earlier posts, the FFCRA was signed into law on March 18, 2020 and generally requires U.S. employers with fewer than 500 employees to provide paid sick leave (“Paid Sick Leave”) and emergency family and medical leave (“Emergency FMLA Leave”) benefits to employees in connection with COVID-19.
Notably, the new guidance includes a revision to the guidance that was just issued last Thursday, March 26, regarding what documentation employers must collect from employees requesting leave under the FFCRA. Our summary of the DOL’s initial guidance is available here, but please note that in light of the DOL’s updated guidance, employers should rely on this post’s summary of documentation requirements. The new guidance does not explicitly outline what documentation employers must collect. Instead, it notes that if employers want to seek a tax credit for the Paid Sick Leave or Emergency FMLA Leave, they should “retain appropriate documentation.” The DOL then refers employers to consult with “Internal Revenue Service (IRS) applicable forms, instructions, and information for the procedures that must be followed to claim a tax credit, including any needed substantiation to be retained to support the credit.”
In addition to this revision, the updated guidance includes a number of questions and answers regarding new and key