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Nasir and Matt discuss a new law mandating paid sick leave for employees in New York City, the Union-Tribune in San Diego losing a lawsuit for misclassifying independent contractors, small businesses finding another loophole in the Affordable Care Act, and one person's opinion to never do online banking for your business. They also answer questions about seeking licensing across multiple states, transferring membership interests in an LLC, and providing benefits to employees. As mentioned in this week's episode, Top Floor Legal is also proud to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: Okay, we have a lot to cover today, right, Matt? This is an action-packed newsworthy podcast. MATT: Yeah, there are some good stories. I don’t know what makes it more action-packed than any of the other episodes. It’s the same amount of stories and questions. NASIR: That’s true. MATT: Maybe it’s just the substance of them. There are some good stories and a wide range of different states, too. So, there’s some good stuff today. NASIR: Yeah, very educational. This is what we do. We cover business legal news and we also answer some of your business legal questions and you can send them in to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com and also go to our website – legallysoundsmartbusiness.com – and submit it in the form as well. MATT: Okay. We’re going to start out on the east coast and work our way over. So, the first story today is in New York and it comes with a new law that was passed for paid sick leave. I guess, in New York, it’s mandating that employers give employees five days of paid sick leave a year which I’m assuming – I’m not as familiar with New York as other people but I’m assuming that wasn’t the case before and some businesses probably had it and other ones probably didn’t offer the same sort of thing to their employees. NASIR: Yeah, and this is starting in April. But this is a big deal because, first of all, most states don’t have any kind of requirement for sick leave although a lot of employers do give it. If you do give it, then, yeah, you have to follow it if you have some kind of policy, but Texas doesn’t have it; New York doesn’t have it – New York State, that is; and, also, California doesn’t have it – except, of course, San Francisco, and maybe a couple of other cities here and there, peppered out throughout the state of the union. So, this is pretty significant for businesses. This is a pretty big expense to require this. MATT: Yeah, obviously, it depends on how many employees they have, and they do talk about cost. But I think it’s something good, too. This is how I view it. I guess you weren’t forcing your employees to come in if they were sick, but there was an incentive for them, if they were sick, to come in because they wouldn’t get paid if they didn’t come in and work. But, now, you’re allowing those people to stay at home as opposed to them coming into work and getting more people sick. NASIR: True. MATT: And then, production, maybe you just have a bunch of sick people in there and maybe it makes those people sick and they just give up and have to go home or stay a few days. I think this could be beneficial. So, I don’t think the cost is as bad as some people think. NASIR: Yeah, that’s true. I mean, some business owners, they pick the restaurant and they say that it’s going to be about $100,000 expense for them because they anticipate that they may have to hire more people to cover those people that are taking off. But who knows That seems a little crazy to me. But I also don’t like separating sick leave from vacation leave. I like the concept of paid time off (PTO time) that kind of gives the employee the discretion. “Okay, these are the number of day you have. Take them for whatever you want – whether you’re sick or not.” That way, the employer doesn’t have to go through the stupid ...