From pamella.johnson at state.or.us Mon Feb 13 11:29:33 2012 From: pamella.johnson at state.or.us (Pamella Johnson) Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:29:33 -0800 Subject: [OSSSA218] Feburary 15, 2012 IRS Webinar Worker Classification (Employee or Independent Contractor) Message-ID: <4F38F41F.CD1F.0048.1@PERS.STATE.OR.US> ** High Priority ** Good morning: This Wednesday, February 15, 2012, the IRS is hosting a webinar on "Worker Classification." Over the past several years this has been a hot button topic in the public sector as well as for private industry. For registration and additional details, please see the IRS website at irs at service.govdelivery.com The IRS notes: IRS Worker Classification Webinar Feb. 15th -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A critical issue for all businesses is properly classifying workers as employees or independent contractors. The Internal Revenue Service presents a webinar, Worker Classification, on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 2 p.m. ET. Program Manager for Employment Tax Compliance Policy, Anita Bartels, will present information about worker classification issues and the Voluntary Classification Settlement Program including: ?Defining workers as employees and independent contractors ?What to consider in determining a worker's status ?Looking at important Forms SS-8 and 8919 ?How to treat corporate officers ?Determining if you qualify for federal employment tax relief under Section 530 Viewers can register online anytime before the start of the webinar and download a calendar reminder. A Certificate of Competition will not be offered for this webinar. The webinar will be available on demand on the IRS Video Portal three weeks after the original program airs. Also as a part of its outreach delivery suite, IRS offers National/Local Webinars for Small Businesses and video and audio presentations on a variety of tax topics, all of which are free. From Lori.A.Stieber at irs.gov Thu Feb 23 12:51:00 2012 From: Lori.A.Stieber at irs.gov (Stieber Lori A) Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 20:51:00 +0000 Subject: [OSSSA218] Payroll Tax Cut Extended to the End of 2012; Revised Payroll Tax Form Now Available to Employers IR-2012-27: Message-ID: Important update for employers from the IRS! Lori Lori A. Stieber, Internal Revenue Agent Federal, State, Local Government Salem, OR 97301 Telephone (503) 587-3149 Fax (503) 585-5336 ________________________________ From: IRS Newswire [mailto:irs at service.govdelivery.com] Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2012 12:04 PM To: Stieber Lori A Subject: IR-2012-27: Payroll Tax Cut Extended to the End of 2012; Revised Payroll Tax Form Now Available to Employers [Bookmark and Share] [IRS.gov Banner] IRS Newswire February 23, 2012 News Essentials What's Hot News Releases IRS - The Basics IRS Guidance Media Contacts Facts & Figures Problem Alerts Around The Nation e-News Subscriptions ________________________________ The Newsroom Topics Electronic IRS Press Kit Tax Tips 2009 Radio PSAs Fact Sheets Armed Forces Disaster Relief Scams / Consumer Alerts Tax Shelters More Topics.. ________________________________ IRS Resources Compliance & Enforcement Contact My Local Office e-file Forms & Pubs Frequently Asked Questions News Taxpayer Advocacy Where to File ________________________________ Issue Number: IR-2012-27 Inside This Issue ________________________________ Payroll Tax Cut Extended to the End of 2012; Revised Payroll Tax Form Now Available to Employers WASHINGTON - The Internal Revenue Service today released revised Form 941 enabling employers to properly report the newly-extended payroll tax cut benefiting nearly 160 million workers. Under the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, enacted yesterday, workers will continue to receive larger paychecks for the rest of this year based on a lower social security tax withholding rate of 4.2 percent, which is two percentage points less than the 6.2 percent rate in effect prior to 2011. This reduced rate, originally in effect for all of 2011, was extended through the end of February by the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011, enacted Dec. 23. No action is required by workers to continue receiving the payroll tax cut. As before, the lower rate will have no effect on workers' future Social Security benefits. The reduction in revenues to the Social Security Trust Fund will be made up by transfers from the General Fund. Self-employed individuals will also benefit from a comparable rate reduction in the social security portion of the self-employment tax from 12.4 percent to 10.4 percent. For 2012, the social security tax applies to the first $110,100 of wages and net self-employment income received by an individual. The new law also repeals the two-percent recapture tax included in the December legislation that effectively capped at $18,350 the amount of wages eligible for the payroll tax cut. As a result, the now repealed recapture tax does not apply. The IRS will issue additional guidance, as needed, to implement the newly-extended payroll tax cut, and any further updates will be posted on IRS.gov. Back to Top ________________________________ Thank you for subscribing to the IRS Newswire, an IRS e-mail service. If you know someone who might want to subscribe to this mailing list, please forward this message to them so they can subscribe. This message was distributed automatically from the mailing list IRS Newswire. Please Do Not Reply To This Message. ________________________________ Update your subscriptions, modify your password or email address, or stop subscriptions at any time on your Subscriber Preferences Page. You will need to use your email address to log in. If you have questions or problems with the subscription service, please contact support at govdelivery.com. This service is provided to you at no charge by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). ________________________________ This email was sent to lori.a.stieber at irs.gov by: Internal Revenue Service (IRS) * Internal Revenue Service * 1111 Constitution Ave. N.W. * Washington DC 20535 [Powered by GovDelivery] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pamella.johnson at state.or.us Tue Feb 28 16:05:21 2012 From: pamella.johnson at state.or.us (Pamella Johnson) Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2012 16:05:21 -0800 Subject: [OSSSA218] Fwd: [Payrolltax-News] LISTSERV Feb 2012 References: <4F4CAA67.4CA4.0094.3@PERS.STATE.OR.US> Message-ID: <4F4CFB41.CD1F.0048.1@PERS.STATE.OR.US> Good afternoon: I am forwarding to you some payroll news from the Oregon Department of Revenue which hopefully will be of assistance and 'tax-season' timely. Thank you. Pamella Johnson Oregon State Social Security Coordinator Oregon PERS >>> "TAVARES Cathleen M" 2/28/2012 9:04 AM >>> Payroll Tax News LISTSERV: iWire Information, Part 2 Special Informational LISTSERV February, 2012. Please be sure to provide this information to all who will benefit from it. A. Introduction: Effective last year, if you issue employees a W-2 you must also submit the information to DOR electronically. This is true even if you aren't required to file them with the Social Security Administration (SSA) electronically. Businesses that issue 250 or more of certain Forms 1099 must also submit them directly to the DOR. Next year, that number drops to 100 or more. 1. How do I electronically file W-2s? Employers will be able to submit their W2 information using one of two ways: A. Employers can submit their information using our iWire system. That system uses the same file as you use for filing W-2s with the SSA. Most software vendors already support filing electronically for Oregon. Contact your vendor to determine if the software you have will work for you. The SSA provides a list of software vendors at https://secure.ssa.gov/apps10/ewr/vendors.nsf/byname if you choose to purchase or upgrade your software. B. The department is providing a new filing system for small businesses to manually enter W-2 information so they can meet the requirement. It's called "iWire Direct", it's free, and doesn't require new software. It'll be available the first part of March 2012 by going to https://secure.dor.state.or.us/iWire . 2. How do I electronically file 1099s? The department uses the same file for 1099 information as the Internal Revenue Service does. This means your software likely will create the file following federal Publication 1220 with additional specifications found in our 1220 Addendum located on the iWire webpage. Employers who do not meet this threshold are not required to mail in paper copies of their 1099's or the 1096 form for 2011. 3. Can't I just print off the information when I submit my W2's online through the SSA and send the PDF file to you? No, iWire is not designed to process PDF files because a PDF is really just a picture of the W-2 and does not contain the data we need. The file you submit must be a text (.txt) file unless you use our iWire Direct system which will be available in March. iWire Direct will create the file we need behind the scenes with a small amount of information entered by you from the W-2 itself. B. Common iWire errors (W2 reporting): The three most common errors filers using iWire see are: 1. The value "01234567" is not a valid State Employee Account Number (Oregon RS specification). This is an error generated by how your software enters the BIN into the file. The field for the BIN is a 20 character field. The numbers need to be right justified meaning that the number appears at the end on the entry, with "0"s added to the front to make the total 20 digits. Therefore a BIN of 1234567-8 should be keyed in as 00000000000012345678. You should contact your software vendor to notify them that their program isn't correctly formatting that field. 2. The value "(503) 123-4567" is not a valid contact number: This entry is a 15 character field in the RS record. It is a numeric entry, so the phone number must be entered first with no dashes or spaces. Then, the other five spaces are "blank "filled to equal the 15 characters that are required. Therefore, a telephone number of 503 123-4567 would be entered as 5031234567-----(blanks). Again, consider contacting your software vendor to tell them their software package isn't formatting the telephone number correctly. 3. We were unable to determine if your file is a W-2 or 1099 data submission. Usually this is because your file does not start with a "RA" record (for W-2 submissions) or a "T" record (for 1099 submissions) You are submitting a file that is not in the correct format and does not meet the correct specifications as indicated above. The "RA" and "T" is also not a file name: these are records within the file that identify whether the information is W2 or 1099. Again, consider contacting your software vendor to tell them their software package isn't indicating what file type it is transmitting to us. NOTE: You must use the Oregon specifications for both the "RS" and "RV" records located on our website at http://www.oregon.gov/DOR/BUS/docs/iwire_specs.pdf . These specifications are different from those provided by the SSA. Failure to do so will cause the file to be rejected. C. Additional Questions: 1. QuickBooks provides an Excel spreadsheet with the W2 information. What if I convert that to a text file and submit? Can't that be used? This file is not in the correct format and will not be accepted 2. What is used as a Submitter ID? Do I need to register with the SSA to obtain that number? No, you do not need to register with the SSA. You may use one of several numbers: a. BIN: (Business Identification Number for Oregon) b. SSN: (of Submitter) c. FEIN: (Federal Tax Identification Number) d. Business Registry Number (Secretary of State) or e. SSA Submitter ID number (Provided when registering with the BSO) 3. I received an e-mail indicating I had validation errors. Am I required to correct these and resubmit my file, or does it process anyway? You must correct all errors in the file and resubmit it. 4 Since I am not required to submit my 1099's electronically this year, how do I get them to you? Do I mail them in? What transmittal form do I use? If you do not meet the threshold for electronically filing, you are not required to mail in your 1099's. However, we do ask that you keep copies on file. Be sure to include the amount withholding on your Form WR (Withholding Annual Withholding Reconciliation Report). IMPORTANT: Be sure to also review the "Frequently Asked Questions and Trouble Shooting Tips" at http://www.oregon.gov/DOR/forms/business/iwire-faq-troubleshoot.pdf for additional information and answer. The Payrolltax-News e-mail list provides employers with complete and up-to-date payroll tax information. Employers can self-subscribe here. Representatives in the Business Division will send information to employers through this list. Employers can request additional information by e-mailing payroll.help.dor at state.or.us. As a standard practice, e-mail sent from the department will be in text form only. Department of Revenue will not open attachments. Questions about list content and subscription problems should be directed to the list owner: Cathy Tavares Oregon Dept of Revenue Cathleen.M.Tavares at state.or.us 503-945-8762 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Part.002 Type: application/octet-stream Size: 440 bytes Desc: not available URL: