Employers in Puerto Rico have an extra two weeks — until Aug. 4 — to file payroll information with the State Insurance Fund Corp., the SIF announced last week.

Sashmarie Z. Rivera-Lopez
(littler.com photo)

Employers also have more options for classifying employees who are working from home during the pandemic and beyond.

“Acknowledging that remote work will now be the 'new normal' for most employees, the SIF modified approximately 20 risk classifications to cover teleworking,” attorneys at the Littler Mendelson law firm explained in a blog post.

Workers such as auditors, accountants, lawyers, system analysts and other office personnel are covered, even when working remotely, without requiring the business to consider remote work as an additional risk on its payroll statement.

Still, the employer will need to report to the SIF those employees who will be working remotely. The SIF now has a form for that.

On the other hand, the lawyers said, if the employer has employees who are telecommuting but whose risk classifications do not anticipate remote work, then the business must think about including remote work as an additional risk in its policy.

“The good news is that SIF lowered the premium pay for the remote work category from $2.70 per $100 of payroll to $1.05 per $100 of payroll,” which will offset higher classification costs, Jose Santiago and Sashmarie Z. Rivera-Lopez wrote.