Payroll did not take out Federal Taxes

I'd be glad to help with your question about payroll, builtbyjconstruc.

Federal taxes, especially federal withholding, are calculated based on the employee's setup. Let's review the details to make sure they're taken out of your employee's paychecks. Here's how:

1. Go to the Payroll menu and select Employees.
2. Click the name of the employee, then click the Pencil icon beside Pay.
3. Go to Step2 or the part where the employee's withholding or W4 are set up, then click the Pencil icon underneath it.
4. Review the details and make sure all information is correct.
5. Click Done.

If you're still not getting any taxes even if all the details are correct, please contact our phone or chat support teams. They can take a closer look at this to determine why the federal taxes are not calculating for the rest of the employees. Here's how:

1. Click the Help menu in the upper-right hand corner of your QBO account.
2. Type in "Talk to a human" in the chatbox, then press Enter.
3. Select Get help from a human.
4. Click Chat with us or Have us call you. 

Here's an article for more details about their contact information: Contact Payroll Support.

I'd also like to share these articles for additional guidance and future reference when running payroll in QBO:

• Run Payroll Reports
• Payroll Tax Compliance Links

You can always reply to me or post questions in the Community if you need help again. We're always here to guide and assist you.

I recently added a new employee and QB did not withhold federal taxes on her paycheck.  It did withhold all other taxes on this employee so I know everything is set up correctly .  I spent an hour on the chat after waiting 45 minutes to chat with someone about this and the problem was never resolved. Customer service spent 30 minutes trying to upgrade my services and verifying my account. I am a professional seeing patients all day and I do not have this amount of time to devote to solving a problem . I can withhold a certain amount manually each paycheck for federal taxes but I won’t have any recourse if the employee has to pay additional taxes at the end of the year.  I feel that QB should address this problem in an update . This happened one other time with an employee of mine and she had to pay 2K for federal income taxes.  The only common denominator is that both employees had selected married and no dependents on the W-4 and it was 2020 or later .  Can anyone please help ? 

Thanks for joining this thread, AF64.

I can see the importance of having accurate paycheck data. This is to ensure your taxes and forms have the correct information. I’ll guide you in the right direction on how to rectify the issue.

QuickBooks Online calculates your federal and state income taxes by following the IRS Publication (Circular E), Employer’s Tax Guide. The online system computes the federal withholding based on these factors:

• Taxable wages
• Number of allowances/dependents
• Pay frequency
• Filing status

Also, these are the why taxes are not calculating when processing payroll.

• They are not meeting the taxable wage base
• They were set to Do Not Withhold for federal and state income taxes in the employee setup.

Follow the steps in this article on how to resolve the issue: Check out this article for more details: 0.00 or no income tax withheld from paycheck.

If the worker’s tax information is set up properly, I recommend contacting our Payroll Support Team again for further assistance. They have tools to determine the root cause. Once identified, our specialists will assist you on how to apply the permanent solution.

I’m adding some articles for future reference. These resources provide an overview of payroll tax wage bases and limits. From there, you’ll see answers to common questions about tax forms and payments.

• Payroll tax wage bases and limits
• Get answers to your payroll tax payment and filing questions

Feel free to leave a comment below if you have other concerns. I'll be around to guide and help you out. Take care and have a good one.

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@Rasa-LilaM wrote: greatpeople

Thanks for joining this thread, AF64.

I can see the importance of having accurate paycheck data. This is to ensure your taxes and forms have the correct information. I’ll guide you in the right direction on how to rectify the issue.

QuickBooks Online calculates your federal and state income taxes by following the IRS Publication (Circular E), Employer’s Tax Guide. The online system computes the federal withholding based on these factors:

 

• Taxable wages
• Number of allowances/dependents
• Pay frequency
• Filing status

Also, these are the why taxes are not calculating when processing payroll.

 

• They are not meeting the taxable wage base
• They were set to Do Not Withhold for federal and state income taxes in the employee setup.

 

Follow the steps in this article on how to resolve the issue: Check out this article for more details: 0.00 or no income tax withheld from paycheck.

If the worker’s tax information is set up properly, I recommend contacting our Payroll Support Team again for further assistance. They have tools to determine the root cause. Once identified, our specialists will assist you on how to apply the permanent solution.

I’m adding some articles for future reference. These resources provide an overview of payroll tax wage bases and limits. From there, you’ll see answers to common questions about tax forms and payments.

 

• Payroll tax wage bases and limits
• Get answers to your payroll tax payment and filing questions

 

Feel free to leave a comment below if you have other concerns. I'll be around to guide and help you out. Take care and have a good one.

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I spent an hour on the chat after waiting 45 minutes to chat with someone about this and the problem was never resolved. Customer service spent 30 minutes trying to upgrade my services and verifying my account. I am a professional seeing patients all day and I do not have this amount of time to devote to solving a problem . I can withhold a certain amount manually each paycheck for federal taxes but I won’t have any recourse if the employee has to pay additional taxes at the end of the year.  I feel that QB should address this problem in an update . 

You do understand that QB is just restating all the same verbage and is not helping us out. I have stated in the previous post that all of your solutions will not address the real issue.  I have been using QB or over 25 years and I have never had such poor response to a problem.  There are countless  other users with the same problems and QB has yet to provide a solution.  I will calculate the federal withholdings using the IRS forms but I will be very unhappy with QB every time I have to do payroll.  

That's not the kind of service we want you to experience, FurryBrownie. Let me make it up to you.

Your issue has been escalated to the appropriate department. We'll reach out if there's an update already. Feel free to keep your line open. Or, you can also check your email for the replies to this post.

If there's anything else that you need, don't hesitate to let us know. We're one post away. Take care!

Still no resolution to this thread? I too have this issue, but seems QB is not capable of resolving?

Hello, Medici. 

I'd like to ensure that this federal taxes concern gets addressed immediately. I suggest reaching out to our Customer Support Team. One of our representatives can pull up your account in a secure environment, and they can further investigate it.  

1. Sign in to your QuickBooks Online company. Then click Help (?).  
2. Click Talk to a human.  
3. Choose Talk to a human.  
4. Enter your concern.  
5. Tap Contact us. Then choose either Chat or Get a callback.     

Also, Intuit is compliant with the IRS's mandate on how to calculate the amount for Federal Income Tax. You can refer to the Publication 15 for in-depth information. 

I'm still here to help you more if you have follow-up questions about payroll. Just add a comment below or mention my name. Wishing you all the best and stay safe!

I'm going on two years with this problem.  It is now 11-8-21, and Quickbooks still hasn't fixed the federal payroll problem.  If anyone can suggest an alternative bookkeeping system that allows for inventory,  please send me a message.  I've used Quickbooks for 15 years, but its not meeting my needs anymore.  Stopping payroll to visit the IRS website to manually compute the federal tax amount, as the Quickbooks customer support people keep directing me to do, simply will not work for me.  I have too many people to pay and too little time to do it already.

As of 1/31/2022 this is still unresolved.  

All my existing employees entered prior to 2022 are just fine.  New employees I just entered Jan 2022 are having zero federal tax withheld. 

Hi there, turbohuffman. 

I'm here to make sure QuickBooks calculates employees’ federal taxes accordingly. 

Federal taxes, especially federal withholding, are calculated based on the employee's setup. You'll want to review the details to ensure they're taken from your employees' paychecks.

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

If the issue persist, we can perform come basic troubleshooting steps to isolate the issue. You can start accessing your QBO account in an incognito or private window for testing and then check. You can use these key shortcuts below for quick navigation:

• Google Chrome: Ctrl + Shift + N
• Safari 11 or newer: ⌘ + Shift + N
• Mozilla Firefox: Ctrl + Shift + P
• Microsoft Edge: Ctrl + Shift + P\

Then go back to your main browser and clear the cache if it is now showing correctly. You can also use other supported browsers as an alternative except for Internet Explorer.

To remain compliant with payroll taxes, you can take a look at this article: Payroll Tax Compliance Links. Search for the correct state, and look over the Withholdings section for additional information. 

Let me know in the comments below if you have other questions about payroll taxes in QuickBooks Online. I'll take care of them for you. 

I am having the opposite problem.

I just realized (yes I realize its bad timing) that my only 2 employees had no federal taken out. My new employee in 2022 has the taxes taken out.

Wow and nothing I do fixes it..

Thats ridiculous

Hello there, JrBacon.

I appreciate you bringing this issue with us. I would recommend reaching out to our Payroll Support team to have this better checked. They have more tools, like screen sharing, that help resolve the issue and correct them for you.

Here's how:

1. Open QB Assistant by clicking the Help menu.
2. Select Talk to a human. 
3. When asked, enter something like "payroll did not take out federal tax."
4. Proceed with I still need a human.
5. Click the Get help from a human link.
6. Select Get a call back or Start a message. 

After resolving the federal income tax issue, run payroll as you normally would. You can also run a variety of payroll reports if you want to see your employees' liabilities and earnings: Run payroll reports.

I'd be glad to share more details again if you have more questions about the taxes in QuickBooks Online. I'll guide you on how.

I have several employees that are not having federal income taxes withheld. I have done all the recommended fixes. Nothing is working. I also know that these employees absolutely should have federal income taxes withheld based on the IRS Tax Withholding Estimator. Based on a quick google search, it seems that this is an ongoing problem for many Quickbooks users. I have spoken to a customer service rep and even shared my screen but received no solution. I am hoping someone could provide me with a real solution to a problem that is obviously on quickbooks end and not an user error. 

Hi, 1935 1470 2339 864.

I can see that you've already talked to one of our representatives today and looks like they were able to address your queries

However, if you still need assistance with payroll-related or any QuickBooks concerns, you can always get back to us.

As always, feel free to visit our Help articles for QuickBooks Online in case you need tips and payroll-related articles in the future. 

I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know how the call goes or if there's anything else you need so I can look further into this. Have a good one.

I am trying to figure out as well how the the federal tax is not being taken out of my check. Numerous complaints about the same thing … Insane!  And then for a generic post to keep saying ( I’m sorry your having a issue ))when  you have a product that is giving this many issues … you should stand by your product and fix it!!! Get all your engineers together and figure it out. 

Hello @Mcken,

I would feel the same if I get payroll issues with using the product, especially with the payroll taxes. I'm here to help you figure out why the federal tax is not being taken out in QuickBooks Online.

Federal taxes calculate based on the details from an employee's profile. For the federal withholding taxes, QuickBooks calculates them based on the following elements:

• Taxable wages
• Number of allowances/dependents
• Pay frequency
• Filing status

I recommend following the suggestions provided by my colleagues in this thread. This way, you can determine the cause of the tax calculation issue in your QuickBooks.

Also, you can review your data using the Payroll Details report. It'll show you the existing paychecks, including the amount, taxes, and deductions.

Here's how:

1. Sign in to your QuickBooks account.
2. On the left navigation bar, click Reports.
3. Select Payroll Details.

I've included this article for more insights into configuring reports and creating a custom payroll report in QuickBooks: Customize reports in QuickBooks Online.

Leave a comment below if you have further questions or you need further assistance with taxes. We're always here to help you.

@Mcken 

Federal withholding not being taken out of paychecks is a common complaint on this forum.  The problem is that, for the most part, it is completely normal.  We have many employees that have zero income tax withheld.  After the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, federal income tax is so low for lower-income earners, part-time workers, married filing jointly and taxpayers with dependents that the IRS updated their Form W-4 in 2020 because taxpayers were having too much tax withheld.

The only way to know if Intuit payroll is not withholding income tax properly is to look up the tax tables in IRS Publication 15-T for your/your employee's situation.  I have yet to see anyone on this forum look it up and then come back and say that Intuit is not withholding tax properly.

Did all that looked everything up…also one check was 625.83 and FIT was taking out … on another check which was more 661.14 and didn’t take out anything … I was also advised since I file married filling jointly… to switch it to Single or married filling separately? Just trying to figure this out . 

I'm having the same issue with only one employee out of 8 part timers, and she can't get Fed tax to start being taken out. And no, she is not filing exempt, or making below the threshold or any of that other stuff. in fact she is at a higher pay than other employees. Do we resubmit her W4, any thing? 

I appreciate you for joining the thread, @larry.mead.

To sort out your concern regarding federal taxes that were not deducted from your employee, I recommend you contact our Payroll Support Team. This way, they can further check and investigate if necessary why this is happening on your end.

Also, our phone representatives have tools that can securely pull up your account.

Here’s how to get in touch with them:

1. Go to the (?) Help icon in your QuickBooks Online (QBO) account.
2. Select the Search tab, and click Contact Us.
3. Enter a brief discussion of your concern and click Continue.
4. Select either Chat with us (if you prefer messaging) or Give us a call.

Please ensure to review their support hours to know when agents are available. This way, you can contact them at a time that is convenient for you.

Feel free to add a comment if you have further questions about payroll. The Community always has your back. Have a good one!

I am having the same issue as the individuals in the previous post.  I have several staff members who have nothing coming out for Federal Taxes. They have filed married (jointly) and they have not claimed any dependents. I have been on the phone with multiple customer service reps and I am placed on hold for 30 minutes or more for them to search the answer. None of them knew the answer. My issue is not resolved. I was told to contact my Accountant or just have the staff member take more out just in case.

Welcome to the Community, @Seesaw1. Thanks for reaching out to us.

Let me share some insights about your federal withholding tax concern. In QuickBooks, federal and state income taxes are withheld in line with IRS Publication (Circular E), Employer's Tax Guide. If you notice a paycheck with no income tax deducted, it's possible that the employee did not satisfy the taxable wage basis.

With that said, we may verify your employees' tax setup and determine if the Federal Withholding part is set up accurately. If you need to review and change your employee's information, be sure to check the following items since they are the critical details that allow the system to compute your taxes correctly.

• Taxable wages
• Number of allowances/dependents
• Pay frequency
• Filing status

Here's how to check your employee's profile:

1. Go to the Workers menu, then select Employees.

2. Search for the employee's name and click the pencil icon next to Pay.

3. Verify the following sections:

• Personal info to
• How do you want to pay [employee]
• What are [employee] withholdings?
• Tax exemptions field can be found and your employee's W-4 information, then select Done.

4. Click the Profile tab and make any required changes.
5.Select the Employment tab, then check the information.
6. Click Done.
 

For additional information on your employee's federal or state income tax and how to manage your federal W-4 forms, please see the following articles:

• Troubleshoot no income tax withheld from a paycheck.
• Enter federal Form W-4 in QuickBooks Payroll.

You can also visit this article to learn how to run, print, and customize payroll reports in QuickBooks Online Payroll: Run payroll reports.

Feel free to get back to us by clicking the Reply button below if you need further assistance managing federal withholding tax in QuickBooks Online Payroll. We're always willing to help you. Keep safe!