Federal Taxes 2020: Social Security Wage Base
The Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) taxable wage base increases from $132,900 to $137,700 in 2020. The maximum 2020 OASDI portion of the Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax payable by each employee is $8,537.40 or 6.2% of the wage base, up from $8,239.80. Employers match the employee amount with an equal contribution.

The Medicare or Hospital Insurance tax rate remains 1.45% and is applicable to all wages paid during the year. An additional 0.9% in Medicare taxes applies to individuals with annual earned income of more than $200,000, and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.

Federal Taxes 2020: Federal Withholding Tables

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released Percentage Method Tables for Automated Payroll Systems that will appear in Publication 15-T, Federal Income Tax Withholding Methods (for use in 2020). Publication 15-T will be posted on IRS.gov in December 2019. For more information, see:  https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/2020-percentage-method-tables-for-automated-payroll-systems.

 

Deltek for Professional Services has not yet started using the new Form W-4. The application is using the Standard Withholding Rate Schedules if the Form W-4 is from 2019 or earlier, or if the Form W-4 is from 2020 or later and the box in Step 2 of Form W-4 is not selected.

Hawaii 2019 SUTA Electronic Filing

The Hawaii Unemployment Insurance Express/Quarterly Wage Reporting System (HUI Express/QWRS) program is being phased out and replaced by the New Employer Web Application. As a result, the Contribution Record Layout using a fixed-length format for HUI Express Online Filing will no longer be valid. A CSV (comma separated values) file format will now be used for the New Employer Web Application.

 

See the following table for the CSV file layout of the Employer’s Quarterly Wage:

 

Field	Count	Field Type	Notes
SSN	9	Numeric
Last Name	30	Alpha/Num
First Name	30	Alpha/Num
Middle Initial	2	Alpha/Num
Total Gross Quarter Wages	10	Numeric	Maximum of 10, including the decimal: (NNNNNNN.NN) Example: 1 thousand should be 1000.0.
Out-of-state wages	10	Numeric	Gross out-of-state quarterly wages up to the taxable amount.
State	2	Alpha	If the employee worked in more than one state, use the state in which they earned the most.

 

For more information, see the following references:
https://labor.hawaii.gov/ui/main/new-employer-website/ 

https://labor.hawaii.gov/ui/files/2019/02/REVISED-ISP-.pdf

Iowa 2020 Tax Update
These are the updates for Iowa:

• The annual tax bracket thresholds have been adjusted.

• The standard deduction increases as follows: 

• • • From $1,690 to $1,880 for employees who claim one or zero allowances

    • From $4,160 to $4,630 for employees who claim more than one allowance

For more information, see: https://tax.iowa.gov/sites/default/files/idr/documents/WH/IA%20Withholding%20Formula%20and%20Instructions%20TY2020.pdf.

Ohio 2020 Tax Update
The optional computer formula has been revised effective January 1, 2020. For more information, see: https://www.tax.ohio.gov/Portals/0/employer_withholding/2020%20Tables/WTH_OptionalComputerFormula_2020.pdf.

Kentucky 2020 Tax Update

The standard deduction amount increases from $2,590 to $2,650.

Pennsylvania 2020 SUTA Electronic Filing: File Naming Convention

Effective January 1, 2020, the file upload file naming format of ICESA (.ICS), for Original Wage Reporting, will change.

 

• Original Wage report prior to January 1, 2020: FILEUPLOAD_UC2A_EAN.ICS (for example, FILEUPLOAD_UC2A_1234567.ICS)

• Original Wage and Tax report January 1, 2020 or after: FILEUPLOAD_UC2-2A_EAN.ICS (for example, FILEUPLOAD_UC2-2A_1234567.ICS)

 

The Employer Account Number (EAN) should have no hyphen, no R or M indicators, and no check digits.

 

For more information, see https://www.uc.pa.gov/Documents/UC_Forms/UC-2010.pdf.

North Carolina 2019 SUTA Electronic Filing

The E record of the ICESA file format has been updated to include the Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN) in locations 6-14. Previously, the FEIN was not specified. The RE record of the EFW2 file format has also been updated to include the FEIN in locations 8-16. Previously, the FEIN was not specified for this record, either. For both FEIN fields, "Applied For" will not be accepted as an entry.

 

You can find the specifications and record layouts for electronic filing here: https://des.nc.gov/PortalCommon/Content/downloads/tax_docs/WageReportingSpecs.pdf.

Massachusetts 2019 W-2 Electronic Filing: Federal and Paid Family Leave Amounts

Federal amounts and paid family leave contribution amounts must be reported in the RS record, in locations 338-381.

 

Location	Field	Length	Description
298-337	Blank	40	Leave blank.
338-348	FICA Medicare Tax	11	Right justifies and zero fill.
349-359	Federal Mass Retirement	11	Right justifies and zero fill.
360-370	Federal Mass Wages	11	Right justifies and zero fill.
371-381	MAPFML	11	Employee contribution for Paid Family and Medical Leave. Right justifies and zero fill.
382-512	Blank	131	Leave blank.

The compliance deadline is January 31, 2020. For more information, see: https://www.mass.gov/doc/w-2-electronic-filing-specifications-handbook/download.

California 2020 Tax Update

Updates to California taxes for 2020 include the following:

• The annual standard deduction increases from $4,401 to $4,537.

• The annual exemption allowance increases from $129.80 to $134.20.

• The low income exemption table has been updated for all filing statuses.

• The withholding tax rate table has been updated for all filing statuses.

New York State 2020 Tax Update

The annual withholding tax tables for Married and Single have been updated. For more information, see:  https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/publications/withholding/nys50_t_nys_120.pdf.

North Carolina 2020 Tax Update

Updates to North Carolina taxes for 2020 include the following:

• The standard deduction amount increases from $10,000 to $10,750 for employees who are Single, Married, or Surviving Spouse.

• The standard deduction amount increases from $15,000 to $16,125 for employees who are Head of Household.

For more information, see: https://files.nc.gov/ncdor/documents/files/2020-NC-30_Final.pdf.

Defect 1213686: On the Credit Card Statement Selection dialog box, when you set the Statement Status field to In Progress and also selected any value in the In Progress/Closed Statement Date field, Vantagepoint stopped responding and you received an error message.

Defect 1206647: When you submitted an expense report with a forward-leaning slash ( / ) in its name and then opened the report in the Approval Center, a blank page screen was displayed.

Defect 1222274: When you clicked Combine Records on the Combine Records tab of the Combine Firms form,  you received the following error message: "View or function 'VEProjectAssoc' is not updatable because the modification affects multiple base tables."