48-654. Employer's experience account; acquisition by transferee-employer; transfer; contribution rate.

(1) Subject to section 48-654.01, any employer that acquires the organization, trade, or business, or substantially all the assets of another employer shall immediately notify the commissioner of the acquisition and may, pursuant to rules and regulations adopted and promulgated by the commissioner, assume the position of such acquired employer with respect to the resources and liabilities of such acquired employer's experience account as if no change with respect to such acquired employer's experience account has occurred.

(2) The commissioner may provide by rule and regulation for partial transfers of experience accounts, except that such partial transfers of accounts shall be construed to allow computation and fixing of contribution rates only where an employer has transferred at any time a definable and segregable portion of his or her payroll and business to a transferee-employer.

(3) For an acquisition which occurs during either of the first two calendar quarters of a calendar year or during the fourth quarter of the preceding calendar year, a new rate of contributions, payable by the transferee-employer with respect to wages paid by him or her after midnight of the last day of the calendar quarter in which such acquisition occurs and prior to midnight of the following September 30, shall be computed in accordance with this section. For the purpose of computing such new rate of contributions, the computation date with respect to any such acquisition shall be September 30 of the preceding calendar year and the term payroll shall mean the total amount of wages by which contributions to the transferee's account and to the transferor's account were measured for four calendar quarters ending September 30 preceding the computation date.

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Annotations

This section, which allows an acquiring organization to assume the position of its predecessor with respect to the latter's experience account, is referring to the contribution rate of that employer. The experience account balance is used to determine the rate at which the employer must contribute, and it is not a cash account which may be treated as a liquid asset. West Nebraska General Hospital v. Hanlon, 208 Neb. 173, 302 N.W.2d 694 (1981).