The Payroll Calendar controls what Report Dates can be assigned to expenses. When expenses, tax assistance or withholding entries are created for a voucher, they must be associated with a specific Report Date. This Report Date will determine which expenses will and will not be included in a payroll tax calculation batch. A Report Date cannot be assigned to an expense within the voucher entry screen unless it has been made available through the Payroll Calendar of the assigned Payroll System. You can access the Payroll Systems by clicking on the Payroll Systems link under the Company Configuration heading of the Company Menu.
You can add a New Payroll System by clicking on the + link in the first row and column of the Payroll System list.
Active Status
This drop down allows you to select the active status. The options are Active, Process Only, and Inactive. Active will be fully functional. Process Only will allow you to use it for processing but not assign to new assignment, this is an intermediary status to allow a Payroll System to finish out before it is inactivated. Inactive will not be available for assignments or any processes.
Name
Provide a name for the Payroll System.
External Name
This field allows you to specify an external name that will be viewable by external users in the portal for this payroll system.
Description
Specify a description for the payroll system if you would like.
Pay Periods per Year
Specify the number of pay periods per year that you will be processing.
Country
Specify the country this payroll system is for.
Currency
This will default based on the country that is selected but can be changed, if necessary. When complete, click the Save button. This will open up additional configuration.
For the purposes of a US Gross up you will only be concerned with the Voucher Entry –Payroll Calendar section. To add Report Dates for a Tax Year click on the New Link in the first row and column of the table.
Tax Year
This drop down allows for the selection of a tax year for the Payroll Calendar. There is one Payroll Calendar for each tax year for each Payroll System. The Payroll Calendars only enforce the report dates for expenses with the same tax year as the Payroll Calendar.
Tax Year Cutoff
There is often a cutoff date towards the end of the year, beyond which any new expenses will be held until the next tax year. This field is designed to store the date on which you want any new expenses to apply to the next tax year, rather than the current one.
One of the fields that must be filled in when entering expenses is the Tax Year field. A year will may be defaulted into this field. The default value is based upon the comparison of today’s date to the tax year cutoff date from the Payroll System assigned to the assignment. If the Tax Year Cutoff field is blank, the year of today’s date will be defaulted into the Tax Year field. If the Tax Year Cutoff field is not blank, and today’s date is less than the date in the tax year cutoff field, the year of today’s date will be defaulted in. If the Tax Year Cutoff field is not blank, and today’s date is equal to or greater than the tax year cutoff date, one year greater than the year of today’s date will be defaulted in.
Note: A Payroll Calendar must be established for the next tax year in order for the Tax Year Cutoff date to appropriately default the Tax Year field in expense entry to the next year.
Current Date Status
This field will control the availability of the current date as a Report Date when entering expenses. This drop down includes Default, Available and Not Available. The current date will not be available for selection in expense entry if no selection has been made in this field.
Default – If selected, this option will default the Report Date to the current date for newly created expenses.
Available – If selected, this option will make the current date a possible Report Date selection in the expense entry screen.
Not Available – If selected, this option will not allow the current date to be used as a Report Date on the expense entry screen for new expenses.
Report Dates
If a Report Date(s) other than the current date needs to be created for this Payroll Calendar it can be accomplished in this section.
New
This button should be used to create an additional Report Date option within the Payroll Calendar.
Delete
This checkbox can be used to delete an established Report Date from the Payroll Calendar. If selected, the corresponding Report Date will be deleted from the Payroll Calendar on Save.
Note: Once a Report Date has been assigned to expenses it is best to inactivate that date rather than delete. See the Date Status below.
Report Date
The desired Report Date should be entered here. The date can be typed into the field or the pop-up calendar can be used to select the desired date.
Date Status
This field will control the availability of this Report Date when entering expenses for assignments assigned to this Payroll System. This drop down includes Default, Available and Not Available.
Default – If selected, this option will default the Report Date to the date entered in this row for newly created expenses.
Available – If selected, this option will allow for the date entered in this row to be a possible Report Date in the expense entry screen.
Not Available – If selected, this option will not allow the date entered in this row to be used as a Report Date on the expense entry screen for new expenses.
Company Assignment Policies
The Relocation or Assignment Policy is used to associate services with assignments and apply audit rules for expense management. Since the gross-up service has been defined at the system level, it now needs to be made available within a policy. Please reference the Setting Up A New Client manual for details on creating and maintaining Company Assignment Policies.
Assignment Policy per Assignment
The Assignment Policy which contains the gross-up service must be assigned at the assignment level. Assignment Policies are assigned on the Relocation Details screen for the appropriate assignment.
Additionally, for an assignment to use any of the available services, those services must be authorized (e.g. expense management, gross-up, etc). Services are authorized on the Services screen under the General menu item for the desired assignment.
Please refer to the ‘How to Authorize Services’ section of the Create an Employee and Assignment manual for more information about authorizing services.
The Payroll Process Overview
When conducting the payroll process there are steps that should be followed.
All expenses for the date range of the calculation should be entered into the system.
A report should be created that contains all of the employees you will be calculating for this period. The purpose of this report is to request current wages for the employees you will be calculating for. This is particularly important for any OASDI or SDI taxes that cut off at a particular income level.
Payroll should supply updated information for the employees. This information needs to be updated manually on the Employee Salary tab of Tax Assistance or by a Wage Import into the system.
Once all of the expense information has been entered and the Employee Salary information has been updated you can run a Tax Calc Batch.
Then create a Tax Calc Payroll Report. This will tell the system that the expenses have been reported to payroll and will prevent them from getting picked up the next time you run a Tax Calc Batch.
Tax Assistance per Assignment
The per Assignment Tax Assistance piece resides under the Expense Management menu and includes three tabs, General, Tax Authority Input and Employee Salary. Each of these tabs stores pieces of Move information that are an integral part in executing a gross-up calculation.
General Tab
The General Tab holds several pieces of move data including move mileage information, Tax and Wage Policy information, etc. Information must be saved on this tab before the Tax Authority Input tab can be accessed.
Country
This field sets the taxation of the assignment to either United States, for US gross up, and Canada, for intra-Canadian gross up. The setting in this field will control the Tax and Wage Policies available for selection for this assignment.
Miles from Old Home To Old Work
This field is designed to hold the total number of miles between the employee’s old home address and the old work address.
Miles from Old Home to New Work
This field is designed to hold the total number of miles between the employee’s old home address and the new work address.
Total Move Miles
This field represents the difference in the number of miles between the old residence and the old work location and the number of miles between the old residence and the new work location. The result of this calculation (Total Move Miles) is used in determining whether a move meets government requirements for a qualified move. This value is not used by the tax calculation, and does not automatically impact the value in the Qualified Move check box.
Calculate Button
If miles are not manually entered into the Total Move Miles field, this button allows the system to automatically calculate the miles. The total move miles will be calculated by subtracting the number entered in the Miles from Old Home To Old Work field from the Miles from Old Home to New Work field.
New Hire
Checking this box specifies whether the employee is a New Hire. The default value for this field is unchecked.
Qualified Move
Checking this box specifies whether the assignment is qualified and treatment of this Assignment’s expenses are part of a “qualified move”, i.e. meets the IRS guidelines (see IRS Pub. 521) for a qualified move. The current tax regulations require the following:
Work Related Requirement – The assignment must be closely related in both time and place to the start of work at the new job location.
Distance Requirement – The distance between the new principal place of work and the old residence must be at least 50 miles greater than the distance between the old principal place of work and the old residence. These are the miles entered into the Total Move Miles
Time Requirement – In the 12 month period following the assignment, the employee must be a full-time employee for at least 39 weeks. This test may be waived in the case of disability or death, an involuntary separation from service (other than for willful misconduct), or if the employee is transferred again for the benefit of the employer.
Note: Although this field is optional, the system will always check to see whether or not it is checked when it runs a tax calculation, and handle the expense(s) accordingly. The default value for this field is checked. The value in the Total Move Miles field does not automatically impact the value in this field.
Payroll Hold Until
Please see the following example for an explanation of this field:
The employee is a new hire.
The Payroll System will not have information about this employee until October 1, 2008.
The data for this employee should not be included on any reports to payroll until after October 1, 2008.
When running a Tax Calc Batch, creating a payroll report and tagging data as being sent to payroll specify the “Payroll Hold Until” date to be October 1, 2008.
Anyone with a value later than October 1, 2008 for this field will be excluded from the process.
Tax Policies
This drop down menu will list all Tax Policies for the company to which the employee belongs that are set to the same taxation as the assignment (United States or Canada). Tax Policies control the tax calculation engine. Each Tax Policy field will assign a Tax Policy to the Assignment for each of the following events:
Voucher Entry – This is the Tax Policy used at the time of expense entry.
Payroll – This is the Tax Policy used during a payroll calculation of taxes
(pay period gross-up).
Year End – This is the Tax Policy used during a year-end tax calculation/true-up.
Note: The screen will allow the save of Assignment data without selecting Tax Policies, but the system will require a Tax Policy any time a calculation is run for an Assignment. For this reason, it is strongly recommended that you select Tax Policies for each of the events listed before saving this information.
Wage Policies
This drop down menu will list all Wage Policies for the company to which the employee belongs that are set to the same taxation as the assignment (United States or Canada). Wage Policies are used to control the calculation of the wage basis during tax calculations. Each Wage Policy field will assign a Wage Policy to the Assignment for each of the following events:
Voucher Entry – This is the wage policy used at the time of expense entry.
Payroll – This is the wage policy used during a payroll calculation of taxes (pay
period gross-up)
Year End – This is the wage policy used during a year-end tax calculation/gross-up.
Note: The screen will save the Assignment data without selecting Wage Policies, but the system will require a Wage Policy any time a calculation is run for an Assignment. For this reason, it is strongly recommended that you select Wage Policies for each of the events listed before saving the information.
Save
This button will save all entered and selected data.
Save & Next
This button will save all entered data and selected data and move to the next tab in the process, the Tax Authority Input tab.
Year End Tax Reports
This section will list all Year End (4782) reports that have been generated for this Assignment. This list will include reports that have been generated directly from this screen and also those that have been generated from the Company level Year End Report Publishing screen.
New
Selecting the + link will open the Year End Tax Report section which will allow the user select various parameters and generate the Year End (4782) Report for this particular Assignment.
Tax Year
This drop down menu will only include Tax Years in which the Assignment has existing expenses
Transferee Identifier
This drop down menu lists the fields which are available to appear on the report as Transferee Identifiers. The user can choose to display one of the “To” Employee Identifier fields from the Assignment page; one of the “From” Employee Identifier fields from the Assignment page; the Relocation System Number; or no Employee Identifier.
Exclude Checkboxes
These four (4) checkboxes allow the user to exclude any of the following pages or sections from the report:
Detail Page – This page lists all expenses associated with an assignment.
Tax Impact Page – This page displays the detail of the tax calculation.
Summary Page – This page presents the information formerly required to be reported on IRS Form 4782.
Tax Assistance Summary – This section of the Summary Page provides a breakdown of the tax assistance amounts amongst the various taxing authorities.
Generate
This button will generate or create the Year End (4782) Report for this assignment.
Once the report has been generated the user can publish the report to Employee portal or delete the report and the associated record in the Year End Tax Reports grid.
Publish
This button will publish this Year End (4782) Report to the Employee portal.
Delete
This button will delete the report as well as the record from the Year End Tax Reports gird.
Once the report has been published it can be unpublished by selecting the Undo Publish button.
Tax Authority Input Tab
The Tax Authority Input Tab is where Departure and Destination State or Province and Local Authorities can be entered. Taxes will be calculated using the authorities selected on this screen.
Railroad
Check this check box if the employee falls under the US Railroad Retirement ACT (RRTA). Checking this checkbox will cause the system to display the RRTA social tax authorities (RRTA1A, RRTA1B and RRTA2), instead of the usual federal social security authorities (Medicare and OASDI).
Departure Tax Authorities
Departure Work State (Optional) or Departure Province
This field allows you to select the state or province from which the transferee is departing and may be used in calculating the tax assistance/withholding if the tax assistance policy is NOT set to Calculate Destination Only.
Note: The system will not calculate taxes for either “No State” or “Puerto Rico” tax authorities found in the State tax authority lists..
Departure Resident State (Optional)
This field identifies the Resident state to be used when using the Work/Resident feature.
Multi-State Withholding Rule (Optional)
This field provides the withholding rule when the Work/Resident feature is enabled. It is essential to understand the employee’s residency status before selecting the appropriate rule.
For additional information on the Multi-State Withholding Rule functionality please refer to the Multi-State Withholding section at the end of this document.
Local Authorities Available (Optional)
This field allows you to select from a list of local tax authorities (these can be system local authorities or user-defined local authorities). When you choose a state in the drop-down list field, all local authorities for that state will be listed in the field below. To select a local for this move, either double-click the local from the Available field or click the right-hand pointing arrow next to the Local Authorities Available field. This will move the authority into the Local Authorities Selected field.
You can select any number of local authorities – the ad hoc report writer is currently geared for reporting on up to three locals plus three SDI (state disability insurance) type authorities, however.
Add and Remove
These buttons with either Add a local tax authority from the Local Authorities Available list box to the Local Authorities Selected list box or remove a local tax authority from the Local Authorities Selected list box.
Local Authorities Selected
This field indicates which authorities are selected for tax treatment for the move. To remove an authority from this field, double-click the authority or highlight the authority and select the left-facing arrow.
Note: Once an authority is selected and listed on the right, the authority will no longer be available for selection on the left, and vice-versa.
Destination Tax Authorities
Destination Work State or Destination Province
This field will assign a Destination Work State or Province to the assignment. The drop down list will include either all states, as well as NS for No State and PR for Puerto Rico, or all Canadian Provinces
Note: The system will not calculate taxes for the NS and PR authorities.
Destination Resident State
This field will assign a Destination Resident State to the assignment. The drop down list includes all states as well as NS for No State and PR for Puerto Rico.
Multi-State Withholding Rule
This field will assign a Work/Resident withholding rule for the Destination Work/Resident State combination selected.
For additional information on the Multi-State Withholding Rule functionality please refer to the Multi-State Withholding section at the end of this document.
Effective Transfer Date
This field represents the date the employee begins work in the Destination State.
Local Authorities Available
When a state is chosen in the drop down list all local authorities for that state will be listed in the box below. To select a local for the assignment select the local from the Local Authorities Available field and select the Add button. This will move the authority into the Local Authorities Selected field.
Add and Remove
As noted above, these buttons can be used to assign or un-assign Local Authorities.
Local Authorities Selected
This field indicates which authorities are selected for tax treatment for the assignment. To remove an authority from this field select the authority and select the Remove button.
Save & Back
This button will save the selected authorities to the assignment and go back to the General tab.
Save
This button will save the selected authorities to the assignment.
Save & Next
This button will save the selected authorities to the assignment and move to the next tab in the process, the Employee Salary tab.