The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (H.R. 133), which was signed into law on December 27, 2020, includes provisions that allow employers to voluntarily extend their Families First Coronavirus Response Act Emergency Paid Sick Leave and Emergency Paid FMLA leave through March 31, 2021 if they want to.
Importantly, the Act does NOT provide an additional 80 hours of Emergency PSL, and it does NOT provide an additional 10 weeks of EFMLA leave. Employers that decide to extend their leave should consider the following:
- Revise the end date in the Policies we previously provided, from December 31, 2020 to March 31, 2021 .
- Continue tracking the leave as before, and continue taking the tax credit, up through March 31, 2021, as you did in 2020.
- Anyone who used up their paid leave entitlement in 2020 will not benefit from the extension, because they already used it up. Anyone who did not use all the paid leave will have three more months to do so.
- Apply the extension to all employees.
