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Business Taxes Law Guide—Revision 2024
Hazardous Substances Tax Annotation
Environmental (Corporation) Fee
Determining the Number of Employees Under the Environmental Fee
Determining the Number of Hours Employees are Employed
Once a person is hired as an employee, the employer has control over how that employee spends the hours of the workday, including whether or not to grant paid time off during those workday hours for vacation, illness, and holidays and whether or not the employee must work his or her assigned hours on a particular workday. Therefore, for the purposes of the Environmental Fee statute and calculation of the number of employees "employed [in California] for more than 500 hours," the term "employed" includes the hours for which an employee is paid by the organization, even when the employee is absent due to vacation, illness, or holidays, for the duration of his or her employment. On the other hand, once the person is no longer employed'by the organization … i.e., is no longer "engage[d], suffer[ed], or permit[ted] to work," the employer no longer "has … control [or] determination of the hours of work" of the employee. Therefore, any hours included in the calculation of a terminated employee's severance pay or sick or vacation time cash out should not be included when calculating the number of hours a person was employed during a calendar year for purposes of determining the Environmental Fee owed by the organization for that year. 3/21/06, affirmed and updated 8/14/12.