Salary Deductions and Exempt Status

Kris Tennison

In the HR Q&A section there is an article "Can salary deductions change exempt status?"
It refers to deductions " For instance, deductions made for personal absences of more than one full day or for penalties imposed for majorsafety rule infractions aren't considered improper deductions under the FLSA
rules."

My questions is what about deductions for 401K, flexible spending accounts and the like?
Do they have a bearing on the base salary amount?
Could you provide me with information on this or links to research?

Thank you,

Shadowfax

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-02-05 AT 08:30AM (CST)[/font][br][br]The short answer is that the kind of deductions you reference are not the kind that put exempt status at risk. Additionally, there is less need for concern about deductions from an exempt cutting into the base, even if it drops it below the min - and deductions for the benefit of the ee are ok so long as no benefit or profit to er. If your xsituation involved a mistaken overpayment created by a typigraphical or calculation mistake, in Mi you could recover 15% at a time, so long as the deduction did not reduce the ee below min wage - and mjust be made within 6 months of the error. If you have such an error (as opposed to just changing your mind about the bonus) then I would check ltate law, because I don't think anything in the fed law is going to impact.

Sorry Kris - I mixed up your question with Sha Sha's, but I think you are ok.

Kris Tennison

Thanks for the information.