The Internal Revenue Service is cracking down on wage and hour compliance for 2010. Watch for increased investigations and fines. It seems that each year, the IRS has an issue to pursue that is near and dear to its heart. This year is no exception, with the laser-like focus on wage and hour compliance. Businesses need to be alert for this issue and also be aware that the IRS and the Department of Labor are […]

Property owners are responsible for keeping their land and building safe for visitors. Those who don’t may face legal action. It’s the law that property owners are obligated to keep their property safe. It’s just that simple. Or is it simple? In some cases, it may not seem to be fairly straightforward, particularly if a trespasser is injured on the property and sues for damages. “While you might think they’d be out of luck, the […]

The Department of Homeland Security will deploy 2,200 Border Patrol agents along the northern border by the end of 2010. Dallas-based immigration attorney Stewart Rabinowitz of the firm Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz believes that such additional allocation of personnel has its pros and cons. On Aug. 25, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano visited Piegan, Sweetgrass, Sunburst, and Havre, Montana, with Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) […]

While recent unauthorized immigration has been undergoing a sharp decline, the mainstream media is paying scant attention. Dallas-based immigration attorney Stewart Rabinowitz of the firm Rabinowitz & Rabinowitz offers some relevant commentary. The annual inflow of unauthorized immigrants – sometimes referred to in the mainstream media as “illegal immigrants,” or in an even less favorable light as “illegals” – was nearly two-thirds smaller in the March 2007 to March 2009 period than it had been […]

Becoming an S corporation for United States federal income tax purposes can be a very enticing thing to do. S corporations are unique in that they don’t pay federal income taxes. The incomes and losses are divided among the corporation’s individual shareholders instead. Unlike C corporations, S corporations are not double-taxed through the company’s profits and shareholder dividends, which is perhaps the most important part of S corporation status. Predictably, this can result in substantial […]

Intellectual property is a complicated aspect of law, to be sure. It encompasses, among other things, copyrights and trademarks, and is intended to protect a variety of “creations of the brain.” Copyright does not protect ideas, rather, but original literary and artistic works, musical pieces, discoveries, inventions, logos, designs, architectural creations, photographs and the like. The term “intellectual property” wasn’t used until the 1800s, though the foundation for the legal protection of intellectual property began […]

Between the disastrous wreckages and severe injuries, accidents involving big rigs can be very complicated. The fact that it’s often hard to pin down a defendant in these cases makes them even more difficult. Without a doubt, the trucking industry is a major backbone of the American economy. Without trucks, many goods could not be moved from point A to point B, vital equipment would not be delivered, homes could not be moved, gas would […]

Workers injured on the job should keep detailed records of the injury. It will help when filing a claim. “When someone is hired for a job in construction, management doesn’t typically spend a lot of time talking about workplace injury claims or even workers’ compensation, other than to make sure the new hire gets signed up for it. Even if it’s not mentioned, keep one thing in mind for the future: if something happens to […]

Are DUI and DWI the same thing? Yes, they are the same thing, despite what some may think. Some states do tend to differentiate between charges involving driving under the influence (DUI) and driving while impaired (DWI). In actual fact, these are the same offense and are not usually considered to be separate and distinct crimes. There is a prevailing belief about the distinctions between DUI and DWI. Most believe that DUI means driving under […]

Burn injuries are not always the result of a fire. Workplaces are fraught with various ways to get badly burned. Surprisingly enough, burn injuries are not always the result of being burned by open flames or electricity. Many other burns happen as a result of things going wrong in the workplace. In fact, burns affect at least 1 million people very year; most of which are sustained on the job and should be discussed promptly […]