EEO-1 snapshots for pay data reporting for the 2017 and 2018 tax years will need to be submitted by September 30, 2019. The deadline was set in an order by a Washington D.C federal judge in April, with the pay reporting data periods confirmed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) last week.
The decision requires employers to meet two EEO-1 filing deadlines this year. The more traditional information required for EEO-1 reporting, such as employees’ race, gender, EEO-1 job category, and physical location category based on a payroll period in October, November or December 2018, must be submitted by May 31, 2019. (This is known as “Component 1”). To meet the new pay data requirement, known as “Component 2”, employers will need to submit hours of service and W-2 data on their employees as part of their EEO-1 reports by September 30.
The court ruling by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the U.S. District Court, DC Circuit, on April 25, provided clarity for employers on when this EEO-1 Component 2 pay data needs to be submitted, and whether the EEOC is in a position to accept it electronically. The judge ordered the EEOC to collect two years of pay data. The EEOC on May 1 announced it would collect pay data for 2017 and 2018. That decision was confirmed in a notice in the Federal Register on May 3.
EEOC is expected to be able to take the submissions of payroll date by a September 30 deadline with the aid of a third-party vendor. The Federal Register notice states that the EEOC expects to begin collecting pay data for calendar years 2017 and 2018 in mid-July.
The pay data reporting requirement was initially put in place by the EEOC in 2016 during the Obama administration. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) stayed the implementation of the new EEO-1 form a year later in accordance with its authority under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995 so it could conduct a review of the effectiveness of those aspects of the EEO-1 form. Judge Chutkan in March lifted the stay, reinstating the pay data requirements for EEO-1 reporting as part of her ruling in National Women’s Law Center v OMB, No. 1:17-cv-2458 (D.D.C. March 4, 2019).
Compounding matters are the fact that the legal battle may not be over yet. The Department of Justice is the federal agency that formally defended the OMB and other agencies in the NWLC case. As of Friday, May 3, 2019, the DOJ filed a “Notice of Appeal,” alerting the district court and the litigants of its intent to appeal Judge Chutkan’s ruling. The EEOC was quick to alert the public that the Notice of Appeal does not change the EEO-1 Components 1 and 2 reporting deadlines. Per the EEOC, employers should continue to prepare their EEO-1 reports, including Component 2 due September 30, in anticipation of the upcoming deadlines.
Traditionally, the EEOC requires employers to choose a fourth quarter payroll period as the basis for the information to be included in the EEO-1 reporting. Other fields, like the employee’s name, manager, and work location, are encouraged to be reported, but are not required. Employees who telecommute must be included in the EEO-1 reporting data for the work locations to which they report. Employers should not include home addresses for these employees.
With the revised EEO-1 form finalized, employers will need to act quickly to assess their data gathering capabilities if they want to meet the September 30 deadline with accurate information. Many third-party vendors can aid in the management of data quality to aid in this initiative.
The 2018 EEO-1 Report should be completed by private companies with 100 or more employees. Federal contractors and first-tier subcontractors with at least 50 employees and with at least $50,000 in contracts should file the EEO-1 Report, as should financial institutions and government depositories with 50 employees or more. Private employers with less than 100 employees may also be required to file if their association or common ownership with another company results in the joint entities having a collective total of 100 employees.
To determine if your company is required to file an EEO-1 Report, click here.
To learn more about achieving pay equity, click here.
Related Posts
