Contract Administration

An interim rule published by the Department of Defense authorizes DoD contracting officers to withhold payment from contractors whose business systems they deem deficient. Issued on May 18, 2011, the rule implements Section 893 of the Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act of 2011, which we discuss here. It authorizes COs to withhold up to ten percent of progress payments if the CO determines that the contractor’s business systems contain significant deficiencies. The new rule applies to solicitations issued on or after May 18, 2011. COs are encouraged to amend existing solicitations with the new requirements “to the extent feasible.”

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs is proposing changes to the standard-form Scheduling Letter that will impose significant new burdens on contractors. The proposed changes would require contractors to provide their leave policies (including their entire employee handbook), more detailed demographic and compensation data, as well as the last three years of VETS-100/VETS-100A reports.…

Contributed by Husch Blackwell Partner Bert Wolf, Esq.

Government contractors are relieved that they won’t immediately face having 3% of their invoices withheld as an advance against future tax liability. The IRS’s final rule implementing the 3% withholding tax won’t go into effect until 2013.  Absent a material modification, contracts executed by December 31, 2012 will be exempt from the withholding tax entirely, at least until January 1, 2014. But that isn’t the end of the story. Here is a bit of the background on the source of the 3% withholding tax, why it has been delayed, and some thoughts on why it’s not a great solution to the problem at hand.

Do you think that small business contracts and subcontracts have been going to contractors that do not qualify as small businesses? If so, you may be interested in the new legislative changes intended to discourage and penalize fraud in small business contracting. The changes are in the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, signed by the President on September 27, 2010.

Title 41 of the U.S. Code holds many of the key laws governing contracts with the federal government. A four-year effort to organize this collection of public contract laws and remove “ambiguities, contradictions, and other imperfections” was completed on January 4, 2011. The President’s signature on Public Law No. 111-350, 124 Stat. 367 (Jan. 4, 2011) [pdf] has the effect of renumbering the entirety of Title 41 and giving new section numbers to many of the most important government contract laws.