K.S.A. 44-710 Employer Contributions, Payment; Rates; Charging of Benefit Payments; Employers Held Harmless For Fraud; Time Computation; Pooled Fund; Reimbursing Employers, Reports and Payments, Benefit Costs, Allocation, Group Accounts

• Library: Kansas Statutes
• Edition: 2023
• Currency: Current through 2023 Session Acts Chapter 108
• Year: 2023
• Citation: K.S.A. 44-710

(a) Payment. Contributions shall accrue and become payable by each contributing employer for each calendar year that the contributing employer is subject to the employment security law with respect to wages paid for employment. Such contributions shall become due and be paid by each contributing employer to the secretary for the employment security fund in accordance with such rules and regulations as the secretary may adopt and shall not be deducted, in whole or in part, from the wages of individuals in such employer's employ. In the payment of any contributions, a fractional part of $.01 shall be disregarded unless it amounts to $.005 or more, in which case it shall be increased to $.01. Should contributions for any calendar quarter be less than $5, no payment shall be required.

(b) Rates and base of contributions.

(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), each contributing employer shall pay contributions on wages paid by the contributing employer during each calendar year with respect to employment as provided in K.S.A. 44-710a, and amendments thereto. Except that, notwithstanding the federal law requiring the secretary of labor to annually recalculate the contribution rate, for calendar years 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, the secretary shall charge each contributing employer in rate groups 1 through 32 the contribution rate in the 2010 original tax rate computation table, with contributing employers in rate groups 33 through 51 being capped at a 5.4% contribution rate. For calendar year 2021, unemployment tax rates for eligible employers shall be limited to the standard rate schedule in K.S.A. 44-710a, and amendments thereto. Therefore, no additional solvency adjustment shall be applied.

(2)

(A) If the congress of the United States either amends or repeals the Wagner-Peyser act, the federal unemployment tax act, the federal social security act, or subtitle C of chapter 23 of the federal internal revenue code of 1986, or any act or acts supplemental to or in lieu thereof, or any part or parts of any such law, or if any such law, or any part or parts thereof, are held invalid with the effect that appropriations of funds by congress and grants thereof to the state of Kansas for the payment of costs of administration of the employment security law are no longer available for such purposes; or

(B) if employers in Kansas subject to the payment of tax under the federal unemployment tax act are granted full credit against such tax for contributions or taxes paid to the secretary of labor, then, and in either such case, beginning with the year that the unavailability of federal appropriations and grants for such purpose occurs or that such change in liability for payment of such federal tax occurs and for each year thereafter, the rate of contributions of each contributing employer shall be equal to the total of 0.5% and the rate of contributions as determined for such contributing employer under K.S.A. 44-710a, and amendments thereto. The amount of contributions that each contributing employer becomes liable to pay under this paragraph (2) over the amount of contributions that such contributing employer would be otherwise liable to pay shall be credited to the employment security administration fund to be disbursed and paid out under the same conditions and for the same purposes as other moneys are authorized to be paid from the employment security administration fund, except that, if the secretary determines that as of the first day of January of any year there is an excess in the employment security administration fund over the amount required to be disbursed during such year, an amount equal to such excess as determined by the secretary shall be transferred to the employment security fund.

(c) Charging of benefit payments.

(1) The secretary shall maintain a separate account for each contributing employer, and shall credit the contributing employer's account with all the contributions paid on the contributing employer's own behalf. Nothing in the employment security law shall be construed to grant any employer or individuals in such employer's service prior claims or rights to the amounts paid by such employer into the employment security fund either on such employer's own behalf or on behalf of such individuals. Benefits paid shall be charged against the accounts of each base period employer in the proportion that the base period wages paid to an eligible individual by each such employer bears to the total wages in the base period. Benefits shall be charged to contributing employers' accounts and rated governmental employers' accounts upon the basis of benefits paid during each twelve-month period ending on the computation date.

(2)

(A) Benefits paid in benefit years established by valid new claims shall not be charged to the account of a contributing employer or rated governmental employer who is a base period employer if the examiner finds that claimant was separated from the claimant's most recent employment with such employer under any of the following conditions:

(i) Discharged for misconduct or gross misconduct connected with the individual's work;

(ii) leaving work voluntarily without good cause attributable to the claimant's work or the employer; or

(iii) discharged from an employer directly impacted by COVID-19 in accordance with the families first coronavirus response act, public law 116-127.

(B) Where base period wage credits of a contributing employer or rated governmental employer represent part-time employment and the claimant continues in that part-time employment with that employer during the period for which benefits are paid, then that employer's account shall not be charged with any part of the benefits paid if the employer provides the secretary with information as required by rules and regulations. For the purposes of this subsection (c)(2)(B), "part-time employment" means any employment when an individual works less than full-time because the individual's services are not required for the customary, scheduled full-time hours prevailing at the work place or the individual does not customarily work the regularly scheduled full-time hours due to personal choice or circumstances.

(C) No contributing employer or rated governmental employer's account shall be charged with any extended benefits paid in accordance with the employment security law, except for weeks of unemployment beginning after December 31, 1978, all contributing governmental employers and governmental rated employers shall be charged an amount equal to all extended benefits paid.