When considering whether or not your cooperaitve is understaffed, take a look at the coop’s profitability. As we discussed last quarter, if you are generating adequate local savings, you probably have the right number of employees and those employees are being productive.

Many factors contribute to a cooperative’s efficiency, not the least of which is the use of technology. The agriculture industry has invested significantly in technology over the years.

Occupational fraud is a scheme in which an employee abuses the trust placed in him or her by an employer for personal gain. Its formal definition is: The use of one’s occupation for personal enrichment through the deliberate misuse or misapplication of the employing organization’s resources or assets.

The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 was signed into law on January 2, 2013. This new law modifies or extends many business tax breaks, and also contains many changes to individual income tax. There are substantial additional changes in this act, but the following are most likely to impact you and/or your business.

A multiemployer pension plan is used by an employer to provide a benefit to their employees in a plan that is shared with multiple employers, usually in similar industries. Under previous accounting principles, employers were only required to disclose their contributions to the plan without disclosing the funded status of the plan.

Properly classifying a worker as an independent contractor can save a company payroll tax dollars, but an improper classification can subject the company to back payroll taxes, penalties and interest.