You will not receive a “bill” from the Funds. You will receive contribution reports. During the first or second business day of each calendar month, the Funds send out the contribution reports. It is up to the employer to make certain that the contribution report includes all of the employees for whom contributions are due for that particular month as well as being sure that the names and social security numbers appear correctly.

If you have not received a contribution report by the 7th or 8th business day of the month, please contact the Fund office to make certain that all contribution reports have been mailed. Speak with the Accounts Receivable Department and they will advise you of the procedure to use. If you have had a change in address then you should notify the Fund in writing immediately.

The Funds would prefer that you use the contribution reports which we send you on a monthly basis. The reason for this is that the names of the employees appear in our computer system in the same order as they appear on the contribution reports. This makes entering the contribution units into the computer much easier and less prone to error. If you are going to submit contributions on a worksheet that you have created, then the Funds ask that you make sure that the employees are listed in alphabetical order and that the social security numbers and contribution units are displayed next to each name. We also ask that you return the contribution reports back to us that we forwarded to you at the beginning of the month and also notify the Fund of any deletions or additions to those reports. Many times employees leave the bargaining unit but the names of the employees continue to remain on the contribution reports because the Employer has never notified the Fund to delete the names. This makes the names continue to appear on our computer screen, as well as the contribution reports, and slows up the process of entering the information into our computer system.

The Funds are currently working on a format which we will make available to all Employers who wish to remit their contributions via e-mail. However, you must use the template that the Fund provides. You will not be able to make any modifications to it. The Funds will take the information directly from the template and upload it into our computer system so that the contribution time is updated automatically.

The Funds are separate and distinct entities and as such a separate check is needed for the Health & Welfare contributions as well as the Pension contributions. If you are remitting contributions for more then one account, you may consolidate all of your health and welfare contributions onto one check and all of your pension contributions onto a second check.

If the participant’s social security number is incorrect, please notify us immediately and provide the correct information. Please do not wait until you file the contribution report. You may fax a letter to us with this information. A copy of the employee’s social security card or W-4 statement should be attached to your letter.

The employee’s name appears in the same form on the preprinted form as it does on our census files. If it is incorrect on the preprinted form then it is either incorrect on our census files or we have never received a census card for this individual. Either a census card has to be filled out or the census information adjusted for the name to reflect correctly on the contribution report.

If you cannot pay your contributions on time, it is imperative that you send in the original contribution report without payment and a letter explaining the reason why the contributions will not be remitted at this time and when you expect that these contributions will be remitted. The Funds will be in contact with you regarding payment of these contributions but it is imperative that we receive the contribution report since the contribution units contained on this report are the basis for eligibility for your employees. Notification to the Fund of your inability to pay the contributions in a timely manner will not relieve you of any liquidated damages that may be assessed.

The liquidated damages that are charged to an employer are not imposed by the Fund itself but are due under the terms of your particular collective bargaining or participation agreement. Your agreement will state that contributions are due by a due date. If they are not received by that due date, liquidated damages are to be assessed.

A liquidated damage assessment will be the same whether your payment is one day late or thirty-one days late. The provisions of the collective bargaining agreement provide for an assessment to be made once you are late.

There is a grace period, the period being from the 1st of the month to your due date. Most employers who receive liquidated damage assessments incur such charges because they wait until the last possible moment to remit the contributions. Please keep in mind that the Funds will use your postmark as the determining factor as to whether or not liquidated damages are assessed. We recognize the postmark since we realize that mail could be delayed. It is also important to remember that the date which the envelope runs through your postage meter machine is not the same as the United States Post Office postmark. If your contributions are due by the 28th of the month and your contribution remittance was metered on the 28th but not postmarked by the United States Post Office until the 29th, liquidated damages will be assessed.

If you become delinquent you will receive a series of letters and phone calls from the Fund attempting to ascertain the reason for the delinquency and when we can expect payment. If the situation cannot be resolved, or if you completely ignore all attempts to resolve the matter with the Funds Audit Department, then the matter will be turned over to Fund Counsel for collection. You should be advised that under ERISA, you may then be liable for all attorneys fees and costs, interest, as well as liquidated damages.

No. While the Funds are separate and distinct entities, the remittances for both Funds may be included in the same envelope as the processing of the remittances for both Funds are shared. You do need to remit separate checks, however.

Your contributions can be hand delivered and dropped off at the Fund office during normal business hours, which is typically Monday thru Friday 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. Contributions that are hand delivered must be received on or before the due date stated in your agreement.

The contribution method which the Fund employs is a self-reporting method. We rely on the Employer to correctly remit the hours that are due in any given month. The Fund assumes that the contribution remittance is correct. The Fund has no knowledge as to the amount of work performed by any given employee during any given month. As such, we cannot determine that your remittance is incorrect and assume that it is correct.

Contributions are to be made in accordance with the terms of the written agreement between the Local Union and the Employer. Amendments to that agreement cannot be made orally. Any amendments that are made to the original collective bargaining agreement must be done so in writing and signed and dated by both parties. A copy of any and all amendments must also be forwarded to the Health & Welfare and Pension Funds.

You should not take any credits against your Health & Welfare and Pension contributions unless you have received written authorization to do so by the Funds. Refunds and credits are governed by the terms of the Trustees Resolution regarding the return of over-reported contributions. Any request for a refund or overpayment must conform to the terms of this resolution. If you do not have a copy of this Resolution, please contact the Funds Audit Department and we will gladly send you a copy.

Please contact the Fund’s Audit Manager or Accounts Receivable Department. We will gladly assist you in whatever difficulties that you may encountering in the completion of your contribution report.

If there is a case in which your contribution report does not include all of the hours that it should for any and all of your employees, then you should notify the Fund in writing as to the name and social security numbers of the individuals involved as well as the additional amount of hours that are due. You should also include copies of the payroll records, which may include time cards, or pay sheets, for the entire month for which you are remitting the additional contributions.

The Funds must ascertain whether or not the contributions which have been made are correct. After we have had a chance to review the payroll records we can determine whether your supplemental report is correct or if there is another problem that has to be addressed.

As long as you are receiving contribution reports from the Funds then you should return the reports even if it means indicating that there are no hours to report for that particular month. If you do not remit any report, you will show up as being delinquent. If you would like to be removed from the Funds active mailing roster, then you should notify us in writing. We will then confirm this matter with the Local Union involved. After we receive confirmation from the Local Union, we will then remove you from our active mailing roster.

Employee contributions are not allowed. If your agreement states that contributions are to be made for work performed under the collective bargaining agreement to the Health & Welfare and Pension Fund, then your company would be responsible for those contributions to the Funds regardless of whether or not you paid them to a third party.

Contributions are made to the Fund strictly under the terms of the terms of the collective bargaining agreement or participation agreement. This is the vehicle used to fund the benefit plans.

Contributions are only to be made as outlined under the terms of your collective bargaining or participation agreement. You cannot remit contributions to the Health & Welfare Fund to maintain an employees eligibility for Health & Welfare coverage if it is not stated in your agreement. Doing so would constitute submitting a fraudulent report.

Contributions are only to be made as outlined under the terms of your collective bargaining or participation agreement. You cannot remit contributions to the Pension Fund to maintain an employees eligibility for Pension coverage if it is not stated in your agreement. Doing so would constitute submitting a fraudulent report.

It is possible for non-bargaining unit employees to be able to participate in the Health & Welfare Fund. If you are interested in this option, please contact the business agent for your bargaining unit employees.

No. Contributions are only to be made to the Pension Fund for those employees who are covered under the terms of a written agreement with one of our participating Local Unions.

This is incorrect. Contributions are to be made under the terms of the written agreement with the Local Union for those employees doing work covered by the agreement. Union membership is not prerequisite for fringe benefit contributions or eligibility under the Funds’ Plans of Benefits.

If your Company is a participating Employer in the Teamsters Health & Welfare Fund of Philadelphia and Vicinity, then employee contributions that are made via payroll deduction are not allowed. No employee contributions are allowed except as outlined under COBRA. If your Company is deducting a portion of the Health & Welfare premium from your employees pay, then this method is to be changed immediately. If you should have any questions about this issue, you should contact the Fund’s Audit Manager as quickly as possible.

The reason this may occur from time to time is that the Health & Welfare and Pension Fund cannot increase your contribution rate until we receive a copy of the collective bargaining or participation agreement from the Local Union. If we have not received that in a timely manner, then we cannot inform you of any contribution rate increase in a timely manner as we will not be aware of what the terms of the agreement are until we receive it.

The reason for this is that contributions are to be made to the Funds in accordance with the terms of your collective bargaining or participation agreements. These agreements do not limit contributions to fifteen days per month. The cost of providing benefits exceeds the amount of contributions for 15 days. Employees who work more than 15 days and those who work less than 15 days in effect subsidize those who achieve eligibility by working the minimal number of days required. If all employers were required to remit only 15 contribution days per month, the contribution rate would be extremely high.

The Funds perform audits to ensure that the Employers are remitting correctly and to head off any potential problems. The Funds want to ensure that contributions are being made for individuals for whom contributions are required and in the correct amounts. It is only through auditing that the Administrator and the Trustees can be reasonably sure that all participating employers are properly and accurately recording the contributions which are due. It allows the Employees to be comfortable with the performance of it’s Employer who is remitting the contributions to the Funds.

The type of records reviewed in a audit depends upon the type of Employer that is being audited, as the records involved vary from a small sole proprietorship company to a large national corporation. Basically, the Funds will use time cards, time sheets, payroll registers, employee earning records, personnel records, petty cash journal sheets, and State Unemployment Quarterly Tax Returns.

The ICC may only require that you hold onto the driver logs for six months but ERISA requires that you maintain records to be able to account for the hours worked by your employees. As such, if you decide to destroy the ICC logs, you should have a summary of the hours worked by the employees kept by the month or year. If you don’t have the original records then the Funds may estimate the amount of contributions due based on wages that were earned by the employee during that time period.

You will be contacted by a Fund Auditor to set up a mutually convenient date to perform the audit. The Auditor will notify you as to what records are needed. Once the Auditor is at your offices, he will review all of the records that have been given to him. If he has any questions regarding the records, he will ask them. He will then perform his review. After he has finished the audit process, he will review with the Employer any and all discrepancies that he has found. He will also ask additional questions if there is additional information needed. At that time the Employer may bring to his attention any areas that the Employer may believe that the auditor has not considered in producing the audit results. The Auditor will provide his/her rationale for assessing contributions in a specific matter. When the Auditor leaves the Employer’s office, the audit is not yet completed. There will be work that the Auditor has to finish at the Fund offices. Once he has completed his worksheets that are then turned in to his/her supervisor for review. After this review, the audit results will be sent out to the Employer.

The tax returns are one method that the Funds use to review the entire population of employees to determine who is to be included and who is to be excluded for contribution purposes. The matter of making tax returns and other types of records available to Fund auditors was decided in a Supreme Court case known as Central States vs. Central Transport. This case acknowledged that the Trustees of the Plan are responsible for collecting contributions from delinquent employers, that the Trustees are personally responsible for the actions of non-fiduciaries in collecting the delinquent contributions and that the Funds have the right to expect a reasonable audit of the employers books and records which include the tax returns. This language has now been adopted by the Trustees and can be found in the Trust Agreements.

The Employer does have the option of mailing the records in only if all of the records, including the tax returns, are going to be mailed. This can be discussed with the Auditor further when he/she makes contact with you. You can also securely email all documents or upload through our secure portal. As the Auditor for more details on uploading.

If you are overpaying the Auditor will instruct you how to proceed for any overpayments discovered during the time period of the audit. Please be aware that any refunds or credits will be given under the terms of the Trustees Resolution. The Employer should then undertake a self audit for time period between the end of the payroll audit to the present time to see if the trend has continued. If it has, then a request or refund should be made under the terms of the Trustees Resolution.

Should you disagree with the audit results, you should send a letter into the Fund outlining the differences that you have with the results of the payroll audit. You should also include any and all documentation to support your claim. The Fund may also request that your books and records be made available again to review your assertions.

Under the FMLA law, and as set forth on the DOL web site, you are obligated to remit contributions for the same number of days that the employee would have worked but for the leave. The Employer Guide Book on the FMLA published by the U.S. Department of Labor, provides in relevant part: “If an employee was receiving group health benefits when leave began, an employer must maintain them at the same level and in the same manner during periods of FMLA leave as if the employee had continued to work.” See http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/fmla.htm .