§ 131. Payroll records. (1) Every employer subject to the provisions of this chapter shall keep a true and accurate record of the number of his or her employees, the classification of employees, information regarding employee accidents and the wages paid by him or her for a period of four years after each entry therein, which records shall be open to inspection at any time, and as often as may be necessary to verify the same by investigators of the board, by the authorized auditors, accountants or inspectors of the carrier with whom the employer is insured, or by the authorized auditors, accountants or inspectors of any workers' compensation insurance rating board or bureau operating under the authority of the insurance law and of which board or bureau such carrier is a member or the group trust of which the employer is a member. Any and all records required by law to be kept by such employer upon which the employer makes or files a return concerning wages paid to employees shall form part of the records described in this section and shall be open to inspection in the same manner as provided in this section. Any employer who shall fail to keep such records, who shall willfully fail to furnish such record as required in this section or who shall falsify any such records, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to a fine of not less than five nor more than ten thousand dollars in addition to any other penalties otherwise provided by law, except that any such employer that has previously been subject to criminal penalties under this section within the prior ten years shall be guilty of a class E felony, and subject to a fine of not less than ten nor more than twenty-five thousand dollars in addition to any penalties otherwise provided by law.

(2) Employers subject to subsection (e) of section two thousand three hundred four of the insurance law and subdivision two of section eighty-nine of this chapter shall keep a true and accurate record of hours worked for all construction classification employees. The willful failure to keep such record, or the knowing falsification of any such record, may be prosecuted as insurance fraud in accordance with the provisions of section 176.05 of the penal law.

(3) The chair, upon finding that an employer has failed to keep true and accurate records as required by this section, may impose upon such employer, in addition to all other penalties, fines or assessments provided for in this chapter, one thousand dollars for each ten day period of non-compliance or a sum not in excess of two times the cost of compensation for its payroll for the period of such violation, which sum shall be paid into the uninsured employers' fund created under section twenty-six-a of this chapter. When an employer fails to provide business records sufficient to enable the chair to determine the employer's payroll for the period requested for the calculation of the penalty provided in this section, the imputed weekly payroll for each employee, corporate officer, sole proprietor, or partner shall be the New York state average weekly wage, multiplied by 1.5. Where the employer is a corporation, the corporation and any of the following shall be liable for the penalty provided in this subdivision: the president, secretary and treasurer. If the employer shall within thirty days after notice of the imposition of a penalty by the chair pursuant to this subdivision make an application in affidavit form for a redetermination review of such penalty, the chair shall make a decision in writing on the issues raised on such application.