Coming up roses: a fresh start for the new year

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It’s not too late to spring into action and verify that everything is set up, ready for the first quarter of 2018 and a rosy start to your year.

The deadline to submit federal taxes and forms electronically through Xero is April 26, 2018, while deadlines for state filings vary from state to state.

Quarter-end checklist

Enter all employee wage payments not yet recorded in Xero, prior to filing and paying CX your quarter returns and taxes.
If you need to make any adjustments to first quarter, see how to back out or make corrections to a paid pay run.
Review your company name, address, federal and state ID numbers and deposit frequencies, state unemployment (SUI) ID numbers and rates, and employee social security numbers for accuracy. Review all employees who been marked as exempt from taxes.
If you’ve received a new SUI rate for the year and need help making adjustments for payrolls processed prior to entering the new rate, contact Xero support. Don’t delay – to reduce your stress and get in touch before April 11, 2018.
Verify that the data on the 941 form is correct and that the amount of any adjustment on line 7 is no more than +$5.00 or –$5.00. Adjustments are often due to changing an employee’s taxation for social security and Medicare taxes. Avoid the queues and reach out to us for help by April 11, 2018.
Are you looking to improve your workflow? Check to see if your state is supported for electronic services. File your tax forms and deposit your taxes with a click of a button. And if you haven’t yet registered for federal electronic filing and payment services, you’re can do it in just a few steps. The company still should its own PIN number to make any additional tax payments through EFTPS directly.

Changes to wage base limits

The following are the 2018 state unemployment insurance (SUI) wage base limits. The states shown in bold have changed their wage limits.

State	Wage base	State	Wage base	State	Wage base
Alabama*	8,000	Louisiana*	7,700	Ohio*	9,500
Alaska*	39,500	Maryland*	8,500	Oklahoma*	17,600
Arizona*	7,000	Michigan*†	9,000/9,500†	Pennsylvania	10,000
Arkansas*	10,000	Minnesota*	32,000	South Carolina*	14,000
California	7,000	Mississippi*	14,000	South Dakota*	15,000
Colorado*	12,600	Nebraska*	9,000	Tennessee*	7,000
Florida	7,000	Nevada*	30,500	Texas	9,000
Georgia*	9,500	New Hampshire*	14,000	Utah	34,300
Hawaii*	45,900	New Jersey	33,700	Virginia	8,000
Illinois	12,960	New York	11,100	Washington*	47,300
Indiana*	9,500	North Carolina*	23,500	Wisconsin*	14,000
Kentucky*	10,200	North Dakota*	35,500	Wyoming*	24,700

* An asterisk denotes that electronic services aren’t available for the state in Xero as yet.

† Michigan has two wage bases: 9,000 for employers whose SUI payments and returns are up-to-date with the agency and 9,500 for employers whose SUI and returns are delinquent. Xero uses the wage base of 9,000.

For more information on these updates, see the American Payroll Association resource library.

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