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Pennsylvania's New Hire Reporting Program

All Pennsylvania employers, including agricultural employers, are required to comply with the state's New Hire Reporting Program. This program was created through an amendment to the Domestic Relations Act and is similar to those of other states. It is designed to provide a registry of all employed persons within the state in order to facilitate child support enforcement.

Information regarding the program was sent by the Commonwealth to over 250,000 Pennsylvania employers. However, because farmers are exempt from many of the taxes and reports from which databases are assembled, most agricultural employers probably did not make the address list. The following information is only a partial description of the program. The official guide to the reporting requirements can be obtained from the New Hire Reporting Program at the address below. Any questions about the program should be directed to the New Hire Reporting Program at the phone number listed below, or to a qualified attorney
familiar with the program.

Who is an "employer" that must comply?

All employers, regardless of size or type of business, must comply with the New Hire Reporting Program. This includes agricultural employers who may be exempt from other labor requirements.

Who is an "employee" for purposes of the program?

Under the New Hire Reporting program, an "employee" is any person working for an employer, regardless of the person's age, hours worked, or wages earned. This includes officers of a corporation. An independent contractor is not considered an “employee” under the program. For new hire reporting purposes, a person is an employee and not an independent contractor if the employer must :

• require a W-4 form under applicable law,
• provide a W-2 form under applicable law,
• pay Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Tax under applicable law, or
• pay Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation under applicable law.

Required information

In order to comply with the program, an employer is required to report within 20 days of hire the following information regarding each employee hired on or after January 1, 1998:

• Name
• Home address
• Social Security Number
• Date of birth
• Date of hire

Information must be filed not only for new employees, but also for rehired employees who have been terminated, laid off, furloughed, separated, or granted leave without pay for more than 30 days. For these rehired employees, the date of hire is the date of the latest rehire. The report must also include the following information regarding the employer:

• Name
• Address
• Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN, the identifying number assigned to the employer for federal tax purposes)
• Name of employer contact person
• Telephone number of employer contact person

If the employer so chooses, a report can be filed by simply attaching the date of hire and name and telephone number of an employer contact to the W-4 form submitted for the newly hired employee.

Methods of reporting

Information can be recorded on paper, diskette, cartridge, or magnetic tape and sent to the New Hire Reporting Program via first-class mail. Paper records can also be sent via fax. An additional method of reporting is via the Internet. Detailed instructions regarding all of these methods are available from the New Hire Reporting Program, and an employer should consult these instructions before making a report using any method. Regardless of the reporting method chosen by the employer, an employee's information must be submitted no later than 20 days from the date of hire of the employee, as stated above. If an employer chooses any nonpaper method, that employer should submit two monthly reports no less than 12 days nor more than 16 days apart.

Multistate employers

If an employer has employees in more than one state, that employer only has to send reports to the new hire program of one of those states. For example, if an employer has some employees that work in Pennsylvania and some that work in Maryland, that employer only has to report the required information to the new hire program in Maryland or the new hire program in Pennsylvania, not both. However, the employer must report the information of all employees, regardless of the state in which they work, and multistate reports can only be made by diskette, cartridge, magnetic tape, or over the Internet, not by paper.

A multistate employer who chooses to file a multistate report must notify the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services in writing as to which state the new hire information is being sent, and must send a copy of the notification letter to the Pennsylvania New Hire Reporting Program, regardless of which state will receive the reports. The notification letter must include all of the following:

• Employer's name
• Employer's FEIN
• Employer's phone number
• State selected for receipt of reports
• All states where the employer has employees
• Employer contact name
• Employer contact phone number

This notification requirement is for the purpose of maintaining the National Directory of New Hires in accordance with the Federal Welfare Reform Act of 1997.

Authorized uses of the information

The primary use of the new hire information will be to facilitate the enforcement of child support obligations under the Federal Welfare Reform Act of 1997, but the information will also be used to administer the workers' compensation and unemployment compensation programs of the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. Any further use of the information by government employees or agencies is prohibited.

Penalties

If an employer fails to report or falsely reports the required information, the employer will be subject to the following penalties:

• For the first violation, a written warning.
• For the second and each subsequent violation, a civil penalty up to $25.
• If the failure to report or the submission of a false report is the result of a conspiracy between the employer and employee, a civil penalty up to $500.
  

Important addresses, phone numbers

An information packet, including detailed instructions for each method of reporting, can be obtained by contacting the Pennsylvania New Hire Reporting Program by phone at 1-888-PAHIRES (1-888-724-4737).