§21A-5-10a Optional assessments on employers and employees. - West Virginia Statutes

§21A-5-10a. Optional assessments on employers and employees.

(a) On and after the first day of July, one thousand nine hundred eighty-seven, if the commissioner determines for a given projected quarter that the rates established under the provisions of section ten of this article will not result in payments being made to the unemployment compensation fund in an amount sufficient to finance the payment of benefits during such quarter, the commissioner shall certify such fact to the governor, and the governor shall, by executive order, direct the commissioner to establish a level of assessment for employees and employers in accordance with the provisions of this section which is sufficient to prevent, to the extent possible, a deficit in the funds available to pay benefits to eligible individuals.

(b) Pursuant to such executive order, every employer, contributing and reimbursable, subject to this chapter, shall be required to withhold from all persons in his employment an assessment which shall be in an amount not to exceed fifteen one hundredths (15/100) of one percent of an employee's gross wages, which amount, together with an assessment contributed by the employer in an amount as determined in accordance with the provisions of subsection (c) of this section, except for reimbursable employers who shall not be assessed, shall be paid to the bureau of employment programs on a form prescribed by the commissioner, at the same time and under the same conditions as the quarterly contribution payments required under the provisions of section seven, article five, chapter twenty-one-a of this code. The commissioner shall have the right to collect any delinquent assessments under this section in the same manner as provided for in section sixteen, article five, chapter twenty-one-a of this code; and in addition, any delinquency hereunder shall bear interest as set forth in section seventeen, article five, chapter twenty-one-a of this code.

(c) The commissioner shall establish the exact amounts of the employers' and employees' assessments at a level sufficient to generate the revenues needed to prevent a deficit which would otherwise result from the payment of benefits to eligible individuals, subject only to the limitation established in the preceding subsection (b) of this section. After determining the level of assessment on the gross wages of employees, the commissioner shall determine a rate of assessment to be imposed upon employers, except reimbursable employers, which rate shall be expressed as a percentage of wages as defined in section three, article one of this chapter, and which is sufficient to cause the total statewide assessment on such employers to equal the total statewide assessment imposed upon employees.

Notwithstanding any other provision of this section to the contrary, the solvency assessments on employers and employees established by this section hereby terminate on the first day of April, one thousand nine hundred ninety.