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The Check Was in the Mail
There are 97,000 Americans who still haven't received 1994 tax refunds, but they can't blame the Internal Revenue Service. Government checks totaling $81 million have been returned to the IRS because they could not be delivered. The IRS says it continues to search for the missing taxpayers.
Plugged-in Workers
Non-supervisory workers at a large retail operation showed a 10 percent gain in productivity when wearing personal stereo headsets. A study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology reports the plugged-in workers were less nervous or fatigued and more enthusiastic and relaxed than a control group without headsets. However, the study did not recommend headsets for workers who must
often interact with others.
Computer Market Still Growing
The boom in personal computer sales is nowhere near the saturation point in the United States thanks to the trend of having two PCs in every home. Market research by IDC/Link, New York, indicates 50 million homes will have more than one PC by the year 2000, more than double the estimated 20 million today.
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Take Two Aspirin and Get Back to Work
Employee absenteeism rose 14 percent from 1992 to 1994 and cost companies an average of $505 in 1994, up from $487 the previous year, according to CCH Inc., Chicago, IL. Topping the list of reasons employees used for missing work is headaches -- 4.3 sick days per year for the average employee. To control the rising costs of absenteeism, many companies are succeeding with paid leave banks, which offer employees an allotment of time to use for sick days, vacation days and personal leave.
Paying Taxes Gets Easier
The Small Business Administration, Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service are working together to create a one-page quarterly tax form for businesses with 10 or fewer employees. The new form would collect unemployment insurance information for the states and social security and federal withholding tax documentation for the IRS. This information currently requires 11 to 15 employee-related tax forms. Initially the three agencies will pick one state to work on the streamlined forms. That pilot state will be named early this year.
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