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It Takes Work to be an Employer

Chuck Schwartau

Summary

As agriculture’s structure changes, more and more farmers find themselves as employers, not just operators. Large farms that employee a relatively large number of people are likely to have someone on their management team responsible for the legal aspects of being an employer. The smaller farms, with only a small number of employees are much more likely to assign the record keeping and reporting to someone in the family, who only deals with the task on a periodic basis. Very often this person is the woman in the family business.
This person deals with the legal, tax and insurance forms only on a periodic basis and for a small number of people. It is easy for them to not know some of the requirements or to forget what must be done to stay on the legal side of the ledger as an employer.
This program has been conducted for Annie’s Project groups and for other agricultural workforce management programs. I highlight the federal requirements for employment eligibility, social security filings, tax reports, new hire reporting, non-discrimination and labor laws. For programs in specific states, I have also included subjects required by their state departments of labor or other relevant divisions.

Details

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