By Attorney Kelly Jesson

In what seems to be the theme of the year, we have yet another new regulation for 2024 overturned by a federal court.  A new overtime law went into place on July 1, 2024, which dramatically increased the number of employees who may no longer be exempt from overtime.  We wrote about here in detail. Employers were faced with either paying overtime if those workers were working more than 40 hours per week or increasing their salaries so they no longer qualified for overtime.  The law also called for future changes, most notably another minimum salary increase to meet the exemption in January of 2025.  The threshold increases were very large and likely would have burdened some employers, while obviously benefiting employees who may be working long hours with low pay but not receiving overtime.

On November 15, 2024, a Texas federal court struck down the new law, saying that the Department of Labor (“DOL”) did not have the authority to replace the “duties” test of whether an employee is exempt from overtime with a “minimum salary” test.   The court's order applies nationwide, effective immediately.

This is the second time in recent years that the DOL has attempted to broaden the numbers of workers who are eligible for overtime.  The DOL has said that it will appeal the court’s decision, but for now, it’s business as usual for your business!  If you have any questions about this law or anything else related to your business, please give Jesson & Rains a call!

By Attorney Kelly Jesson

If you don’t know what The Corporate Transparency Act is, you can read about it here and here. We had been hopeful all year that it would be invalidated, and we had intentionally waited until the end of the year to file the Beneficial Owner Information Reports (“BOIR”) on behalf of our clients.  In the past few weeks, we have been working on getting the BOIRs done since the deadline is less than a month away and we were beginning to lose hope.

Alas, our prayers were answered yesterday!  A federal judge in Texas has issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the requirement to report the beneficial owners of businesses because the law is “likely unconstitutional.” The order states that companies nationwide do not need to comply with the Jan. 1 reporting deadline unless and until a higher court reverses the order.

What does this mean for you?  For now, there’s no need to report.  But we do need to continue to watch this situation, as the law will surely be litigated in the future.  We probably have not heard the last of the Corporate Transparency Act.