News & Publications

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion in Misty Cumbie v. Woody Woo, Inc., No. 08-35718 (9th Cir. Feb. 23, 2010) regarding tip pooling by wait staff.

The federal government repealed the federal estate tax as of January 1, 2010. This one-year repeal has important and surprising implications for estate planning.

On November 17, 2009, the Obama Administration replaced the Corporate Fraud Task Force within the United States Department of Justice with an interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.

On November 4, 2009, Washington voters approved Referendum 71, extending to state registered domestic partners all the rights and responsibilities of marriage.

Oregon property tax payers recently received their 2009 property tax assessments from one or more of Oregon's 36 counties. Understandably, you are upset with the fact that in the current economic climate your taxes are going up while your property value is going down.

A new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement worksite enforcement strategy focuses on employers, increasing risk of civil penalties and criminal prosecution.

The substantial nexus guidelines rule enacted by the Oregon legislature in May 2008 gives the State of Oregon jurisdiction to impose an excise tax on corporations for the privilege of doing business in Oregon. Recently, the Oregon Department of Revenue was asked to state a position on whether the rule extended to tax periods prior to its enactment.

The Oregon Department of Revenue (the Department) recently issued Administrative Rule 150-305.100-(C), which clarifies several gray areas surrounding Oregon's new tax amnesty program.

The U.S. Department of State will accept applications for the 2011 Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV-2011) green card lottery starting between Noon, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) (GMT-4), Friday, October 2, 2009, and Noon, Eastern Standard Time (EST) (GMT-5), Monday, November 30, 2009.

A recent decision by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will allow Internet addresses to contain non-Latin characters, including non-alphabetic scripts such as Japanese and Greek, languages based on right-to-left scripts such as Arabic, Hebrew and Chinese, and Latin characters utilizing accents and other symbols.

The H1N1 virus continues to spread and has the potential to waylay an employer's workforce. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has updated its guidance for employers.

The law requires an employer to post notices describing the federal laws prohibiting job discrimination.

Recent federal law expanded the exigency and caregiver leave provisions for military families under the Family and Medical Leave Act, effective immediately.

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act takes effect on November 21, 2009.

The limits remain unchanged from 2009.

Subcontractors working on U.S. Government procurements should be careful about accepting the FAR Clause requiring a “Contractor Code of Business Ethics and Conduct”