State Agencies Bulletin No. 813

Subject
New Error Message for the Federal, State and Local Tax Data Pages in PayServ
Date Issued
April 11, 2008

Purpose

To inform agencies of the new error message that will not allow fixed amounts for tax withholdings to be entered into PayServ

Background

According to Internal Revenue Service Publication 505 (Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax), page 3:

“Form W-4 includes three types of information that your employer will use to figure your withholding.

  • Whether to withhold at the single rate or at the lower married rate.
  • How many withholding allowances you claim (each allowance reduces the amount withheld).
  • Whether you want an additional amount withheld.

Note: You must specify a filing status and a number of withholding allowances on Form W-4. You cannot specify only a dollar amount of withholding.”

Please refer to Payroll Bulletin No. 778 (Fixed Amounts for Tax Withholding) for additional information.

Affected Transactions

On the Federal, State and/or Local Tax Data page(s) in PayServ, if the “Maintain gross: FWT (or SWT or LWT) will be zero unless specified in ‘Additional Withholding’ below” button is clicked and an amount or percentage is entered in the Additional Amount section followed by an attempt to save the page, the new error message will be generated (see illustration below).

Clip of Employee Tax data page
Clip of Withholding error message

Effective Date

Immediately

Questions

Questions regarding this bulletin may be directed to the Payroll Deduction mailbox.