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SteveDonoho
November 17, 2020
Solved

Quickbooks stopped withholding taxes this pay period

  • November 17, 2020
  • 2 replies
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Quickbooks stopped withholding taxes this pay period .   It does not withhold Federal, State, Social Security, or Medicare. My Quickbook Payroll subscription renewed in June 2020 so should be good for another 8 months. When I go to Employees -> My Payroll Service -> Account/Billing Information, it says "Intuit QuickBooks Payroll Annual Enhanced - Status Active" at the top. Under Billing Details it says "Renewal Date: June 15, 2021."  The pay amount is enough that taxes should be withheld. I am using Quickbooks Desktop Pro 2019.

Best answer by SteveDonoho

Thanks for actively responding, @SteveDonoho. I appreciate you for doing all the possible troubleshooting to fix the issue. 

 

Since the withholding taxes are still not calculating even after performing all the fixes, I'd recommend contacting our QuickBooks Payroll team. They can check your account to identify what's causing this to happen and help you resolve the problem. 

 

For future reference, read through these articles to learn more about Federal forms instructions for the coming tax season: 

 

 

 

Feel free to get back and post some more questions here in the Community, @SteveDonoho. I'd be happy to answer your next posts. 


Here is what fixed it:

1. Get payroll updates

2. Select Employees -> Pay Employees

3. For any employees whose name is highlighted in yellow, right click on employee name and choose Revert Paycheck.

4. Do payroll for those employees again.

2 replies

LieraMarie_A
LieraMarie_A
November 17, 2020

I'm determined to ensure that your taxes are withheld without a hitch, @SteveDonoho.

 

First, let's run the payroll update to ensure that you have the latest tax table version.

 

  1. Go to the Employees menu and select Get Payroll Updates.
  2. Check the Download Entire Update checkbox.
  3. Select Download Latest Update.
  4. You'll see a pop-up when the update is complete. 

 

Do you know if these employees are meeting the wage bases set by the IRS? You can click on this link to learn the wage base limit: Topic No. 751 Social Security and Medicare Withholding Rates. 

 

If you're getting the same result, it's possible that their W-4 status has been set to 'Do Not Withhold' by mistake. Here's how to check if an employee was set to Do Not Withhold (Exempt):

 

  1. Go to the Employees menu, then select Employee Center.
  2. Double-click on the employee’s name.
  3. Go to the Payroll Info tab, then select Taxes.
  4. Check the Filing Status under the Federal and State tabs.

 

You can check out this article for more information: 0.00 or no income tax withheld from paycheck.

 

To give you more troubleshooting steps on what to do if payroll taxes are not calculating, please visit these resources:

 

Please let me know if you need further assistance with payroll. I'm always around to help. Have a good one.

S
SteveDonohoAuthor
November 17, 2020

Thank you, but I did the following, and still no taxes withheld:
1. Ran payroll update.
2. Checked W-4 status. Set to Married Filing Jointly for Federal and Withhold for state.
3. Employees are earning enough that Federal, State, SS, & Medicare should be being withheld.
4. Employees have not surpassed social security wage limit.

5. Ran Update Quickbooks Desktop then restarted computer and restarted Quickbooks.

6. Even went into W-4 and specified that $100 "Extra Withholding" should be withheld each pay period. 
Still nothing. Any other ideas?

B
bfortin
August 23, 2022

After years of using QB, no federal tax withholding (or Social Security or Medicare) was taken out of any of our employees this last pay period. There was no link to pay the federal tax deposit either. I was running the latest payroll version and checked all of our employees tax settings and no solution presented here matched our problem. QB Customer Service told me to phone the IRS! Any other suggestion? Thank you.

J
JamaicaA
August 23, 2022

I appreciate the detailed information you've shared, @bfortin. I’m here to help you fix this payroll issue and ensure that Social Security and Medicare taxes will calculate correctly.

 

If payroll taxes aren't being deducted from an employee's salary, you'll need to look at the order of the payroll items on the paycheck to see if that's effecting the calculation. It should be the first item in the Other Payroll Items section of the paycheck, if you want the payroll item to compute solely on the employee's earnings. Add the payroll item after any additions or deductions you want to include in the calculation.

 

After that, check to see if the payroll item is configured to calculate based on amount, hours, or neither. The quantity or number of hours must be manually entered in the Quantity field of the Preview Paycheck window whenever a payroll item is setup to calculate based on quantity or hours. I suggest modifying the payroll item's computation settings.

 

Here's how:

 

  1. From the top menu bar, select Lists and Payroll Item List.
  2. Right-click the payroll item you want to change and click Edit Payroll Item.
  3. Choose Next until the Calculate Based on Quantity screen.
  4. Change the setting to Neither if this item does not require hours or quantity to calculate.
  5. Select Next until you can click Finish.
  6. Hit Finish.

 

Once done, let’s check to see if the annual limit has been set or achieved after that. It may be indicated by a checking in the This is an annual limit checkbox and a default limit set that the employee has reached after a payroll item that has previously calculated correctly stops on a paycheck. Please take the following actions to verify this.

 

  1. In the top menu bar, choose Lists. Then, Payroll Item List.
  2. Right-click the payroll item you want to change and click Edit Payroll Item.
  3. Choose Next until the Limit Type screen.
  4. Verify the limit in the bottom box is accurate. If the limit is correct the employee's payroll item should stop calculating at this limit. If the limit is incorrect, update the amount.
  5. Below the Limit Type, verify whether if the correct option is chosen.
  6. Change the default limit and/or Limit Type selection accordingly.
  7. Hit Finish.

 

For additional information, you can click this article: Payroll items on a paycheck are not calculating or are calculating incorrectly.

 

I also recommend reviewing any over-deductions by consulting previous paychecks for payroll, Social Security, and Medicare taxes. However, whenever a previous tax return has an improper deduction, the QuickBooks system will automatically make the necessary corrections.

 

If the issue persists, let's run the Verify and Rebuild Data tool in your QuickBooks Desktop. This issue could be brought on by complications with the data integrity of both company files.

 

Please refer to this article to see details on how QuickBooks calculates taxes to understand the tax amounts reported on an employee's paycheck or the year-to-date (YTD) payroll report: How QuickBooks calculates payroll taxes.

 

Keep in touch with me if you need more assistance in running your payroll. I’ll be around to back you up. Keep safe and stay healthy.

B
bfortin
August 24, 2022

Thanks for your notes. Unfortunately, all is like usual in the payroll section and I verified the data and all is good. Actually, something was different in the payroll items section from the last pay period. The Company Summary and the Employee Summary both showed "(Adjusted)" next to that title. That was not there before. Is that a hint? Any more suggestion? Thanks for your time.

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