In This Issue
- Washington, D.C. Auto Show Moving to Late March in 2021
- Register for WANADA’s Legal and Ethical Standards Training Workshop
- Helpful Guidance for Making Sense of Federal Payroll Tax Exec. Order
- Md. MVA Hosting Customer Connect Training Session on Sept. 10
- Va. MVDB Adds a New Sales License Background Check Provider
- Optional Labor Day Hours Signage Available for Dealers
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Late last month, WANADA announced that The Washington, D.C. Auto Show would be re-scheduled for the beginning of spring. The 10-day show will now be open to the public every day from Friday, March 26 through Sunday, April 4, 2021, and will be held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center as usual.
Public Policy Day, featuring Industry Media Day, will be held the day prior to the opening of the consumer show, on Thurs., March 25, 2021.
Washington, D.C. Auto Show organizers are working very closely with our partners at the Convention Center and the District of Columbia government to ensure the show is a safe, clean, and exciting environment for all attendees. The Convention Center was recently awarded the GBAC Star Accreditation for world-class cleaning and disinfection strategies, becoming the first building of its kind in the Northeast Corridor to receive the distinction.
Other safety measures being undertaken by the Convention Center and show organizers include adopting the Kogniz AI Health Response Platform, which provides up-to-the-second fever and viral exposure detection, and social distance enforcements.
More information on the show’s full safety protocol, along with a full list of participating manufacturers, and a full schedule of events, will be announced in the coming months. WANADA would like to thank its members, particularly the Board of Directors, for their support and guidance during this re-scheduling process.
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WANADA is offering virtual legal and ethics training seminars, with one for sales managers and another for service managers and advisors. The sessions will be held on September 22 through the Zoom video conferencing service.
Each session costs $100 per registrant and will last roughly four hours. To register for the sales manager training session, please click here. To register for the service managers and advisors training session, please click here.
The training session will fulfill the annual compliance re-certification requirement for dealership personnel, and will cover the latest federal and state laws pertaining to dealerships and business ethics. If you have any questions, please contact Kathy Teich at kt@wanada.org.
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In early August, President Trump announced a voluntary payroll tax holiday through the end of 2020, taking effect on Sept. 1. However, according to Internal Revenue Service guidance issued earlier this week, employers who opt to stop collecting payroll taxes for the next four months will need to remit double the payroll tax amount in the first four months of 2021 to make up the shortfall.
WANADA encourages all employers to discuss the merits of this option with their tax professionals, but stresses that the IRS’ guidance does not provide information on how back, uncollected taxes would be collected from workers who sever employment in the rest of 2020, or how workers who join a company would be able to be excluded from a double-tax collection in 2021. As such, the voluntary payroll tax seems to create large complicated issues for businesses that choose to participate.
The staff at the accounting and advisory firm BakerTilly has provided a summary of the president’s executive order. The analysis includes an important note that IRS guidance puts the onus on participating businesses to develop their own method of securing payroll tax repayment from severed employees before the holiday (and recoupment) period ends.
As the BakerTilly summary notes, the IRS guidance also does not provide any information as to whether individual employees could opt out of the payroll tax holiday, should their employer wish to implement it. The federal government itself is attempting to implement the holiday, but there are still many unanswered questions about how it would be enforced without depriving Social Security of much-needed revenue.
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The Maryland MVA is hosting a free virtual Customer Connect training session for dealers and tag/title staff members on Thursday, Sept. 10 at 11 a.m. To register for the session, please click here.
Once you submit your information, the MVA will contact you directly with login information for the virtual training session.
If you have any questions about the session, or need additional information on the Customer Connect business portal, please contact Katie Kuehn of the MVA at kkuehn@mdot.maryland.gov.
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As of August 1, Virginia dealers are required to complete required background checks for their sales staffers’ initial salesperson licenses, and they now have three different providers to choose from. Those providers are:
Screening One
Paul Craddock
919-533-5005
Accurate (formerly Careerbuilder)
866-255-1852
Reliantcy
800-649-1243
Please note that Careerbuilder, which was one of the first two providers offered by the MVDB, has now changed its name to Accurate. Reliantcy is the new provider that has been authorized to provide the required background checks. Dealers will need to submit an ID code that the screener provides each applicant when submitting their MVDB 61 license application on behalf of a new sales staffer.
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With the Labor Day holiday coming up next Monday, WANADA is providing members with optional modified-hours signage to place in your dealership.
To print and/or download the signs, please click here. Once downloaded, you can type in your business’ hours for Monday and print several to post around your establishment.
If you have any questions, please contact Kathy Teich at kt@wanada.org. Everyone at WANADA hopes that you, your employees, and your families, have a safe and happy weekend.
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