Congress Passes Short-Term Bill to Avert Government Shutdown
Congress recently passed a short-term continuing resolution (CR) to fund the federal government at existing levels through January and February. The bill funds the Food and Drug Administration, military construction, veterans benefits, transportation, housing, urban development, agriculture and energy and water programs through Jan. 19 and all other programs through Feb. 2. Congress will now try to negotiate a long-term appropriations bill in January.
NLRB Delays Implementation of New Joint Employer Rule
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently announced in a court filing they were delaying the implementation of their final rule to expand the standard for determining joint employer status to Feb. 26, 2024. The NLRB’s announcement came in response to a lawsuit filed by business groups in a federal court in Texas as well as concerns from Congress that NLRB was violating federal rulemaking procedures.
According to NLRB, the new standard will only be applied to cases filed after the rule becomes effective next year.
IRS Urges Business to Remain Vigilant Against Cyberattacks
As part of National Tax Security Awareness Week, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) urged businesses to remain vigilant against cyberattacks aimed at stealing their customer's personal information and other business data that can help identity thieves.
The IRS continues to see instances where small businesses and others face a variety of identity theft related schemes that try to obtain information that can be used to file fake business tax returns. For example, phishing schemes continue to target businesses as well as tax professionals and individual taxpayers. And businesses continue to be targets of Form W-2 scams where identity thieves try to trick company leaders into sharing sensitive data.
Businesses are encouraged to follow best practices from the Federal Trade Commission, including:
- Set security software to update automatically.
- Back up important files.
- Require strong passwords for all devices.
- Encrypt devices.
- Use multi-factor authentication.
More information is available at FTC's Cybersecurity for Small Businesses.