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You Gotta Love the Government

November 15, 2005, 4:33 pm

Only the government (in this case the state of Texas) could have a line on a form like this:

17.  Enter the ending date of the twentieth week of employment in the calendar year in which this organization had at least one person employed in Texas

So I am confused about this.  What week do I enter if operations started in September of this year, pushing 20 weeks into next year?  Well, fortunately the state included a sheet along with this form to provide instructions for filling it out.  This is how these instructions explain it:

Item 17:  Enter the ending date (Saturday) of the 20th week of the calendar year in which one or more individuals performed services in Texas.

Well, now its clear.

Tags:
Category: Regulation

2 Comments

  1. Max Lybbert:

    Yes, that's terrible. You're clearly not the first company to hire a Texan in the last 5 months of the year. You'd think that would be in some kind of FAQ.

    I'm not a lawyer, so my opinion doesn't count for much, but given that the state is most likely going to subtract 20 weeks from the date you give, I'd assume you should write the correct year (the "calendar year" qualification doens't seem very useful).

    November 17, 2005, 11:25 am

  2. kevin:

    I gotta love it too. Just received this same status report from Texas, got to question 17, and said, "what the heck?!" So, what's the solution to that? Google for it, of course. And, I immediately hit upon your blog.

    But, still no answer to my question. :( So, I went to Texas law. And, here's what I've found, under Section 201 of the Texas Labor Code: "In this subtitle, 'employer' means an employing unit that: 1) paid wages of $1,500 or more during a calendar quarter in the current or preceding calendar year: or 2) employed at least one individual in employment for a portion of at least one day during 20 or more different calendar weeks of the current or preceding calendar year."

    Whew. That's still a bit to chew on, but I think it is worded more clearly than question 17 on that form. So, what I read into this is that, if you recently became an employer and haven't employed anyone for 20 weeks yet, then there is no date to enter.

    November 21, 2005, 7:46 pm