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Payroll Glossary - F
Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA): Law mandating 12 weeks unpaid leave to most employees to care for newborn or newly adopted children, or to handle a serious sickness or injury by the employee, child, spouse, or parent of the employee.
Federal Wage-Hour Law: The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended. It controls such areas as minimum wage, overtime eligablity and amounts, and child labor. Only applies to employers in interstate commerece.
FICA: Federal Insurance Contributions Act. This is commonly reffered to as taxes for Social Security and Medicare.
FIT: Federal Income Tax.
FITW: Federal Income Tax Withholding. FIT withheld from an employee's wages and deposited to the employee's account with the IRS.
Flexible Benefits: The option to choose off a selected menu of employee benefits offered by an employer. See Cafeteria Plan.
Flexible Spending Arrangement (FSA): An plan that lets an employee have pretax dollars deducted from payroll to pay for health insurance deductibles, copayments and dependent care assistance.
Fluctuating Workweek: An agreement between an employer and a nonexempt (for overtime rules) employee to pay the employee a fixed salary even though the employee's hours may vary from week to week.
FMLA: Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993.
Foreign Earned Income Exclusion: An election by a US citizen or resident alien working abroad to exclude a certain amount of income earned abroad from the taxpayer's gross taxable income.
§401(k) Plan: An plan that allows employees to authorize their employer to place pretax withheld dollars in a retirement plan that invests the money for the employee. The contributions (including those, if any, matched by the employer) and any earnings on the contributions are not subject to federal income tax until they are withdrawn in the future.
Fringe Benefits: Compensation not wages provided to an employee, like group health and life insurance, vacations, company vehicles, local transportation subsidies, and so on., that may or may not be taxable.
FUTA: Federal Unemployment Tax Act. It obligates employers to pay eight tenths of one percent of their employees wages (on a maximum of $7000.00 in wages) as a payroll tax to fund unemployment benefits for separated employees.