In this update...

Catch up on the latest impacting Maine's hospitality industry.



• Registration open: Paid Family & Medical Leave webinars for employers
• Recent restaurant closures draw attention to the state of the industry
• H-2B visa cap met for first half of FY 2025
• Last call - Your input needed on commercial insurance
• "Beneficial Ownership Information" reporting requirements for some small businesses

Maine Department of Labor to host employer-focused PFML webinars this month

The Maine Department of Labor is hosting two webinars that will be focused on what employers need to know ahead of next year, when tax collections for the Paid Family & Medical Leave Program (PFML) will begin on January 1, 2025.

• October 16, 2024, 12:00pm - 1:00pm - Register for the webinar here.
• October 23, 2024, 12:00pm - 1:00pm - Register for the webinar here.

HospitalityMaine was featured in a WMTW story discussing the upcoming webinars and the impact that program costs and employee absences will have on hospitality businesses.

Recent restaurant closures draw media attention to the state of the industry

There’s been a noticeable uptick in restaurant closures across the state, particularly among some long-standing legacy establishments. This trend highlights the growing pressure on restaurants as they struggle to keep up with the sharp increases in operating costs over the past few years.

The National Restaurant Association cites that in the last 4 years:

• Food costs for the average restaurant have increased 29%
• Labor costs for the average restaurant have increased 31%

HospitalityMaine joined WMTW for a story discussing the reasons behind some of these closures, and the critical role these hospitality businesses play in the state's economy. We underscore that inflated labor and food costs are unsustainable, and that, for too many, closure can often be just a payroll away.

H-2B Visa cap met for first half of FY 2025

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced it has reached the H-2B cap for the first half of fiscal year 2025.

Key points:

• USCIS has received enough petitions to reach the congressionally mandated cap on H-2B visas for temporary nonagricultural workers for the first half of FY 2025.
• Congress currently caps the program at 66,000 visas per fiscal year, with 33,000 for workers who begin employment in the first half of the fiscal year, which ends March 31, and 33,000 (plus any unused numbers from the first half of the fiscal year) for workers who begin employment in the second half of the fiscal year.
• This cutoff is only for H-2B worker petitions requesting an employment start date before April 1, 2025.

Read the release from USCIS here.

Last call: Help us! Take this 2-minute survey on commercial property insurance

We are working to better understand the challenges our members face with the availability and cost of commercial property insurance for hospitality businesses. Your insights are crucial in helping us address these issues effectively.

Please take a moment to complete this brief, 2-minute survey. Your responses will remain anonymous.

Thank you for your time!

Required "Beneficial Ownership Information" reporting for many small businesses

• Do you employ 20 or less full time employees?

• Do you have $5 million or less in gross receipts?

If you answered yes to these two questions, then you may be required to report Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI), if you haven't done so already.

Under the Corporate Transparency Act, tens of millions of small businesses (corporations, LLCs, etc.) must provide an online BOI report to the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) by the end of the year.

The toolkit provides FAQs, videos, and templates to help small business owners comply. Additionally, the National Restaurant Association is hosting two Treasury officials for a BOI webinar (register here) on October 10th at 2:00pm.

Dive Deeper

Who: A company may need to report BOI to FinCEN if it is 1) a corporation, LLC, or was created by filing a document with a secretary of its home state or 2) a foreign company registered to do business in the U.S.

• FinCEN defines a beneficial owner as any individual who directly, or indirectly, exercises “substantial control” over a reporting company, or owns at least 25% of the “ownership interests” of a reporting company.

What: BOI includes the name of beneficial owners (25% or more), name of the business, address, date of birth, taxpayer identification, and an identifying number & image from a driver’s license or passport.

• According to FinCEN, filing is free of charge and could take 20 minutes or less to complete.

Why: BOI reporting is intended to help identify criminal or foreign intelligence organizations.

• Failure to report can result in criminal penalties of up to two years in prison and civil penalties of $500 per day, up to $10,000.

When: Companies formed before January 1, 2024 have until January 1, 2025 to file, and companies formed in 2024 must file within 90 calendar days after receiving actual or public notice that their creation or registration is effective, whichever is earlier.

• It is not an annual requirement and companies only need to file once unless the company needs to update or correct information.

How: For more information, restaurant owners can access the FinCEN “Compliance Guide.”

Larger companies are not required to report due to existing ownership reports to federal regulators through other means. The Corporate Transparency Act attempts to prevent illicit finance through smaller corporate entities by creating a uniform reporting process at the federal level.