(a) Where an employer is directed by a voluntary assignment or order
of his employee to pay a sum for the benefit of the employee to a
creditor, donee, or other third party, deduction from wages of the
actual sum so paid is not prohibited: Provided, That neither the
employer nor any person acting in his behalf or interest, directly or
indirectly, derives any profit or benefit from the transaction. In such
case, payment to the third person for the benefit and credit of the
employee will be considered equivalent, for purposes of the Act, to
payment to the employee.
(b) No payment by the employer to a third party will be recognized
as a valid payment of compensation required under the Act where it
appears that such payment was part of a plan or arrangement to evade or
circumvent the requirements of section 3(m) or subpart B of this part.
For the protection of both employer and employee it is suggested that
full and adequate record of all assignments and orders be kept and
preserved and that provisions of the applicable State law with respect
to signing, sealing, witnessing, and delivery be observed.
(c) Under the principles stated in paragraphs (a) and (b) of this
section, employers have been permitted to treat
as payments to employees for purposes of the Act sums paid at the
employees' direction to third persons for the following purposes: Sums
paid, as authorized by the employee, for the purchase in his behalf of
U.S. savings stamps or U.S. savings bonds; union dues paid pursuant to a
collective bargaining agreement with bona fide representatives of the
employees and as permitted by law; employees' store accounts with
merchants wholly independent of the employer; insurance premiums (paid
to independent insurance companies where the employer is under no
obligation to supply the insurance and derives, directly or indirectly,
no benefit or profit from it); voluntary contributions to churches and
charitable, fraternal, athletic, and social organizations, or societies
from which the employer receives no profit or benefit directly or
indirectly.
