What's the Difference Between Payroll Taxes and Employment Taxes?

Tax websites and books toss around these two terms - payroll taxes and employment taxes - as if they were equal, but they are not. Yes, they are close enough in meaning to cause confusion, but they are different things.
For the purpose of the "Crash Course on Payroll and Payroll Taxes," the term "payroll taxes" is used generically to describe all taxes paid through an employer's payroll system.

What are Employment Taxes?
The IRS uses the term "employment taxes" to refer to those taxes reported on Form 941. That is, income tax withholding for employees and FICA taxes (Social Security and Medicare) withheld from employees, matched by employers, and paid by employers. But, just to confuse the issue, the IRS also lists other taxes when it is discussing "employment taxes." Look in this IRS article on "employment taxes," and you will see they also refer to self-employment taxes (Social Security/Medicare paid by business owners) and federal unemployment taxes as "employment taxes."

What are Payroll Taxes?
For this term, the IRS is more specific. By "payroll taxes" the IRS means only Social Security and Medicare taxes withheld from employee pay and matched by employers. In its terminology, federal income tax withholding, while submitted on the 941 form, is not part of payroll taxes.

U.S. federal payroll taxes are:

• Taxes withheld from employee pay for federal income taxes(FIT) owed by the employees. The amount of FIT is determined by information employees provide on Form W-4 at hire. This form can be changed by the employee at any time and as often as the employee wishes.
• Taxes paid for social security and Medicare. Employees and employers share these taxes, with the employer deducting the employee share (one-half the total due) from employee wages/salaries, and the employer paying the other half.

IMPORTANT NOTE
For 2011, the employee portion of social security tax has been reduced 2%, to 4.2%. Be sure to adjust your withholding calculation to take this change into account. This change does not change the employer portion of the social security tax.

The employee tax rate for social security is 6.2% (amount withheld). The employer tax rate for social security is also 6.2% (12.4% total). The Social Security portion of the tax is capped each year. The employee tax rate for Medicare is 1.45% (amount withheld). The employer tax rate for Medicare tax is also 1.45% (2.9% total). There is no wage base limit for Medicare tax; all covered wages are subject to Medicare tax.

Which Form Should I Use to Report Income - A W-2 or a 1099-MISC?

To report income for employees of your company, use a Form W-2. This form reports total income, Social Security and Medicare Income, and it shows how much has been withheld from employee pay for federal, state and local taxes. W-2s are due to the employee no later than January 31. After you have completed and sent the W-2s, you must then collect all of the W-2s for your employees and send those, along with a compilation called a W-3, to the IRS by February 28.

To report income for independent contractors, use a Form 1099-MISC. Independent contractors are those individuals who do work for your company but who are not employees. You don't report withholding or Social Security/Medicare wages because you don't withhold income taxes for independent contractors and you don't deduct Social Security and Medicare from their payments. In the same manner as the W-3, you collect all 1099-MISC forms and send them to the IRS with a 1096 compilation form.

What is the Difference Between a W-2, W-3 and W-4 Form?

From a W-4 Form to a Form W-3 and even a W-2, there are many different IRS forms that relate to payroll processing and payroll tax filing for small and mid-size business owners. Employers and most employees easily recognize and know the basics of what a W-2 and W-4 form are used for. But there are probably a good number of employees that have no idea what a Form W-5 is… and whether it applies to them. We’ll go through some of the most common payroll IRS tax forms and provide a definition and an explanation as to how they are used by employees and employers.

Form W-2

A W-2 Form, also known as a Wage and Tax Statement, is a tax form that employers are required to prepare and send to each employee and the IRS at the end of the year. A W-2 reports, among other things, the total amount of an employee’s gross earnings as well as the amount of Federal and State taxes withheld in a calendar year. W-2 forms also provide details on deductions an employee makes to a retirement plan and contributions to a qualified pre-tax health spending account. These are deductions that must be reported to the Internal Revenue Service. Employers are required to provide a copy of Form W-2 to every employee on or before January 31.

Form W-3

A Form W-3, also known as a Transmittal of Income and Tax Statement, is an IRS payroll tax form which an employer must file with the Social Security Administration (SSA) along with Copy A of each W-2. A W-3 form is a summary of all the various individual W-2 forms your company is submitting to the Federal government. It tells the Internal Revenue Service how many employees your company has and whether your W-2 forms are accurate. Form W-3 also provides a formal reconciliation of the quarterly tax payments made throughout the year on Form 941 for your business. This payroll tax form must be signed by the employer and filed with the IRS by the last day in February… or by the last day in March if you are filing electronically.

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Form W-4

A W-4 Form, also known as an Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate, is an Internal Revenue Service tax form which all new employees must fill out. This Federal tax form is used by an employer so they can calculate the amount of tax to withhold from an employee’s paycheck during payroll processing. The Form W-4 indicates an employee’s social security number as well as the number of personal exemptions that an employee is claiming. An employee can fill out a new W-4 form anytime their tax situation changes… like a change in marital status or number of dependents. At that time, an employee can choose to have more or less tax withheld from their paycheck.

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Form W-5

A Form W-5, also known as an Earned Income Credit Advance Payment Certificate, must be filled out by eligible employees that want to receive part of the earned income credit (EIC) in advance, along with their pay. The Earned Income Credit (EIC) is sometimes referred to as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The EIC or EITC is a credit for certain employees and was designed to supplement wages for low income workers. Many workers may now be considered low income because within the last year they lost their job, took a significant pay cut or worked fewer hours. The earned income credit reduces the tax an employee owes. It may also give an employee a refund even if they do not owe any taxes. For the tax year 2009, the maximum earned income credit an employer is allowed to provide an employee is $1,826, in addition to their regular pay. To receive the rest of any EIC an employee is entitled to, they must first file their annual personal tax return and claim the earned income credit.

PeopleTools 8.52 - starting to look like Fusion Applications

The Release Value Proposition for PeopleTools 8.52 has been posted on metalink.

This realese of PeopleTools introduces and extends current PeopleTools technology that look and behave more and more like Fusion Applications. With this version the transition or fusion of PeopleSoft customers to Fusion Applications will be more streamlined.

In this post I will highlight some of the new features of PeopleTools 8.52

PeopleSoft Application Search

PeopleSoft Application Search is a group of features that offers an improved means of searching for application content, business objects and business process steps within a PeopleSoft application. These capabilities provide users with access to more powerful, keyword-based search components that present a familiar, more intuitive search experience. Instead of browsing through menu hierarchies to find a component, menu item, application data, or transaction, users can use PeopleSoft ApplicationSearch to directly navigate to desired application data or transactions.

Similar to how you might initiate navigation across the internet by first searching for a set of keywords, PeopleSoft Application Search allows application users to initiate steps of a business task with a simple, intuitive keyword search. This capability may reduce or even eliminate the need to navigate PeopleSoft applications using the existing application menu system.

Inter-Pagelet Communication and Interactive Pagelets

Inter-pagelet communication fundamentally changes the way in which WorkCenters, Dashboards, application homepages, portals, and PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture (PIA) pages can bedesigned and constructed. It enables a more interactive and Web 2.0 style of design, where user actions in one pagelet can affect and be reflected in the content in another pagelet. PeopleSoft pagelets can communicate with each other by allowing key fields to publish their values to other pagelets and frames.This new capability allows application page developers to construct PeopleSoft applications in a manner that will give users a much more comprehensive and interactive view of inter-related data.

Related Content Enhancements

The PeopleTools 8.52 release provides the following new capabilities and options for the Related Content framework:

• Related content frames can now optionally appear on the right-side of the page or at the bottom ofthe page. When displayed on the right side, related content services appear as individual pagelets rather than tabs, and any number of pagelets can be open at once. This functionality enables users to view and interact with multiple services at once.
  
• Each related content pagelet can be scrolled. Display actions permit users to refresh or minimizepagelets, or pop them open in their own window should more screen space be needed. Minimized pagelets can then be maximized when needed. Users can configure where related content is displayed, and the frame can still be displayed at the bottom of the page in contexts where doing so is preferable or improves the display of information.
  
• Related actions can be grouped into folders for better organization.
  
• Users can enable or disable services for easy control of the services displayed, without the need to delete or remove them from the menu structure.
  
• Content references from remote nodes can be consumed as services.
  
• Homepage pagelets can be used as related content, allowing reuse of these pagelets in conjunction with transactional pages.
  

WorkCenters and Dashboards

In PeopleTools 8.52 WorkCenter pages have been enhanced in two main ways: The left-hand navigation area has been enhanced for greater usability, and users can now associate any homepage pagelet with a WorkCenter. These enhancements increase the amount of content that can be used in WorkCenter pages.Dashboards can now be configured using a wizard-like tool by business analysts. This obviates using administrative tools in PeopleTools. Both WorkCenters and Dashboards also leverage the interactive pagelets and inter-pagelet communication features, which enable configuration and deployment of functionally rich, highly usable applications.

Charting Enhancements

The Organization Chart feature has been updated with several enhancements to allow users to interact more extensively with organizational charts. These new intuitive and simple-to-use capabilities include:

• Zoom levels have been added to allow more or less data to be displayed.
  
• Instant messaging (IM) presence indicators are now available in organization chart nodes.
  
• Additional flexibility is available for node content design and display.
  
• The Actions List dropdown list is improved to allow the foldering of actions and the launching of PeopleTools related actions.
  

Oracle BI Publisher

Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) support has been added as a pre-processingstep for BI Publisher reports. Report developers may now use Oracle’s JDeveloper XSL Mapper, or anyXSLT tool of their choice, to generate XSLT files and apply them to selected data source xml files ahead of BI Publisher template processing. This allows developers to rename or restructure their incoming xml without modifying the actual data source in order to map their data to pre-defined templates.

Pivot Grids

The pivot grid is a new analytic capability that gives users the ability to quickly and easily pivot and filter data within PeopleSoft applications without having to export data to Microsoft Excel. Data for pivot grids is generated by PS Query and can be rendered in charts or analytical grids. Users can add pivot gridsto application pages or pagelets.

PeopleSoft Test Framework

In PeopleTools 8.52 a new recorder tool bar has been added to PTF. The recorder tool bar optimizes the test case record process by giving users the ability to quickly set variables, add documentation, screen shots and pause recording sessions.In addition, beginning with the PeopleTools 8.52 release users can export test cases to flat files, so that large volumes of test data can be edited more readily prior to importing it back into the database for playback.

Change Assistant

A new three-way merge capability for PeopleCode objects is being introduced with the PeopleTools8.52 release. This new capability is an extension of Change Assistant and allows users to streamlinethe process of reviewing, analyzing and developing PeopleCode objects during an upgrade. Change Assistant users will be able to quickly and easily compare PeopleCode from three different database sand create one merged version. Users will be able to apply rules individually or in batch as they review and analyze the code before they move their code to the PeopleCode tables. PeopleTools 8.52 will also extend Change Assistant to provide a compare user interface for Managed Object Compare. This user-interface enhancement combines the Project and Upgrade tabs of Application Designer into a single view within the new user interface. Users will be able to initiate acompare, validate and/or copy a project, and filter the results to show a subset of the data.

Apple iPad Browser Certification

The popularity of the Apple iPad and other similar tablet devices is growing and they have found their way into the business community. PeopleTools 8.52 will be certified on the Safari browser on an iPad running version 4.2 or later. This is an exciting new user interface platform with unlimited potential for users looking to gain access to PeopleSoft application content from their mobile devices.

Oracle Golden Gate

A great way to extend the usable life of production hardware is to offload work to stand-by servers whenever possible. PeopleTools 8.52 enables the use of Oracle Golden Gate to provide the ability to offload read-only work from an Oracle production database to a stand-by Oracle database.

PSAdmin Support for PIA

PeopleTools 8.52 will provide a unified interface for managing PIA environments running on a webserver. An additional top-level menu has been added to the PSAdmin utility to manage the configuration and state of PIA domains, add new PIA domains, as well as clone or delete existing PIA domains.

Oracle Identity Manager (OIM) Integration

To ensure more seamless integration and interoperability between PeopleSoft and Oracle systems and products, PeopleTools will deliver a web services-based connector to take advantage of cross-version integration of web service security features.

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Support

Beginning in this release PeopleTools Encryption Technology (PET) will support the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).  AES is accepted by the industry as offering the highest level of encryption protection. As part of PeopleTools support of this standard, AES-128, AES-192, and AES-256 keylengths will be supported.

Application Designer Enhancements

• Improved IDE when working on long pages
  
• Improvement for working with hidden frames/group boxes
  
• “Find In” directly from project workspace
  
• Find references capability for application packages
  
• PeopleCode – Last modified in the UI of Application Designer
  
• Improved the performance of copy projects to and from files
  
• Related content and feeds are now PeopleTools managed objects so they can be added to PeopleTools projects and moved easily between PeopleSoft systems.
  

Authorization as a Service

A significant advancement in PeopleTools 8.52 is the new Authorization as a Service framework. The framework allows application developers to externalize the row-level or data-level security of PeopleSoft applications, and make it available as a service. Row-level security is determined at runtime and is widely used in PeopleSoft applications to ensure that users who really need to access data get the access they need. This then allows the related actions, related content services, and third-party applications that provide information relevant to a transaction to be secured using the web services provided by this new framework. The new framework is modeled such that the authorization logic developed for use with PeopleSoft Application Search indices can be reused and exposed as a service.

When a check reversal is done, the payable_time table is not updated to reflect that T&L reported earnings have been reversed. How to handle this?

Peoplesoft Time and Labor does not do offset adjustments if a check that had hours coming from T&L is reversed. If you run the Labor Distribution a zero is returned and will replace the original Labor Distribution Amount. To adjust the hours in T&L to reflect the reversal, (ie A Record Only Adjustment) for reporting purposes, you should be manually making the adjustment using Adjust Paid Time Page. 

Peoplesoft Time and Labor does not do offset adjustments if a check that had hours coming from T&L is reversed. If you run the Labor Distribution a zero is returned and will replace the original Labor Distribution Amount. To adjust the hours in T&L to reflect the reversal, (ie A Record Only Adjustment) for reporting purposes, you should be manually making the adjustment using Adjust Paid Time Page.   

Correcting Unconfirmed Time and Labor Payable Time Generated by a Check Reversal Access the Reverse Time and Labor page -

Reverse Time and Labor page

If you unconfirm a pay run that includes a reversal of Time and Labor payable time, you must then run the Reverse Time and Labor Application Engine process (TL_UNCONFIRM).

Note. You must know the paycheck number of the reversed paycheck when you run this process.
The Reverse Time and Labor process attempts to delete the payable time rows in Time and Labor that were created by the Time and Labor Pay Reversal process (TL_PAY_REVRS) during confirmation of the reversal.

If a future row of payable time that was created during reversal confirmation has already been loaded to payroll, the system does not delete rows; instead it issues a warning message.

Note. After running the Reverse Time and Labor process, check messages. If the system has issued a warning that payable time rows could not be deleted and must be manually adjusted, you must make manual corrections. Depending upon how much of the payroll process has been completed for that payable time, you might have to coordinate with the Time and Labor administrator to make the corrections.
The fields on this page are identical to the process request parameters and selection criteria fields on the Paycheck Reversal Adjustment page.

You must enter the paycheck number of the original check that you reversed and then unconfirmed.

 

How does Time and Labor handle salaried employees in payroll update?

Salaried Employees:


Update Payroll does not send the hours or amounts to payroll that have been reported to the Time Reporting Code that is mapped to the default Regular Earnings Code specified on the Pay Group Table.  Salaried employees are paid the amount that is posted in the Reg Salary field on the paysheet pay earnings line.  If Time and Labor were to update the hours that were reported to a Time Reporting Code, which has been mapped to the default Regular Earnings Code, the employee would be paid incorrectly.


The same reasoning applies for deleting the defaulted holiday time, which is created by the paysheet process and posted as Other Earnings with the default holiday Earnings Code specified on the Pay Group Table.  For Time and Labor employees, the Update Payroll process deletes this generated holiday time; you should report the holiday time through the Time and Labor application. 


If you need to report a rate override for a salaried employee's regular hours, you need to report the information with a Time Reporting Code that has been mapped to an Earnings Code that is not the pay group's default Regular Earnings Code.  Update Payroll does not update time to payroll if you report an override rate using the pay group's default Regular Earnings Code.


Earnings Table Setup:


Earnings Table - Hours Only Turned Off for Exception Hourly Employees
The Hours Only (Reduces from Reg Pay) field on the Earnings Table determines whether hours or earnings for the Earnings Type should reduce the employee's regular pay.  You typically use this field for Earnings Types like holiday, sick leave, and vacation leave.  If you turn on this check box, the hours associated with this Earnings Type will reduce the number of regular hours (Reg Hrs In) on the paysheet for hourly and exception hourly employees, or will reduce the regular earnings (Reg Salary) for salaried employees.   This feature is useful for salaried employees who report Vacation and Sick leave through Time and Labor.  By setting up Vacation and Sick Leave Earnings Codes as Reducing from Regular pay, Time and Labor can send this reported time to payroll for salaried employees and the system will pay the employees correctly.
To Time and Labor, Hourly and Exception Hourly employees are the same. However, the Pay Update process treats Hourly and Exception hourly employees different from Salaried employees.  For Hourly or Exception Hourly employees, any Regular Hours created by the paysheet process are zeroed out.  It is expected that regular time is to be reported through Time and Labor.


For Salaried employees, the situation is a bit different.  Since salaried employees are not paid on an hourly basis, it is not appropriate to pay a salaried employee based on the number of regular hours reported in Time and Labor.  In this case, the Pay Update process does not zero out any regular earnings created by the paysheet process.  In addition, the Pay Update process does not load paysheets with any Time and Labor earnings mapped to the default Regular earnings code for the salaried employee's paygroup.


Regardless of an employee's type, any Holiday hours created by the paysheet process are removed prior to loading Time and Labor Earnings through Pay Update.  It is expected that all Holiday time is either to be reported through Time and Labor, or created by Time and Labor system processes.