Quickbooks payroll not calculating 2019 FIT correctly

Thanks for posting in the Community, @csp54321.

In QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT), Federal and State Income Tax (FIT and SIT) amount calculations are determined by the following:

• agency's wage and tax calculation table.
• employee's filing status, number of allowances, or extra withholding amount in the employee setup.
• pre-tax deduction items included on the paycheck.
• changes in pay frequency (creating extra paycheck outside of normal pay schedule).
• creating a paycheck with wages that has lesser or larger amount than what the employee normally gets in a pay period.

If these pieces of information are correctly set up in your QBDT, I highly suggest contacting our Payroll Support team. They have tools such as screen-sharing (remote access) that can pull up your account in a secure environment. They can also further check the root cause of this issue.

Here's how to reach them:

1. In QBDT, go to the Help menu at the top to get to the QuickBooks Desktop Help.
2. Select Contact Us at the bottom to connect with our live support.

Just in case, I'll add this article for future reference: How QuickBooks calculates payroll taxes.

I want to make sure everything is taken care of for you, so please let me know if you have any other issues or concerns in the comments. I'm always here to help. Have a wonderful rest of the day!

FritzF: Thanks for you reply, however I am trying to find out if there was some sort of problem in the QB Payroll module that would result in calculating too low of FIT in 2019.

I have been using QB Payroll since 2014, I made no changes to employee's filing status, number of allowances, or extra withholding amount in the employee setup. None of this data changed from one year to the next.

As an example, here is what happened for one employee:

 - 2018 W2 wages = 130K, FIT withheld = 29.9K

 - 2019 W2 wages = 165K, FIT withheld = 27K

This does not make sense. Wages went up yet FIT went down. 

Hello there, @csp54321.

Let's make sure to update your payroll tax table to the latest release so QuickBooks will calculate payroll taxes correctly.

Here's how:

1. Log in to your QuickBooks Desktop.
2. Click on Employees at the top menu bar.
3. Tap on Get Payroll Update from the drop-down result.
4. Select the radio button beside Download entire payroll update.
5. Click on the Update button.

Also, here are the lists of articles you can read more about paychecks calculation in QBDT:

• Payroll items on paycheck are not calculating or are calculating incorrectly
• QuickBooks Desktop calculates wages and/or payroll taxes incorrectly

Please don't hesitate to let me know if you should have any questions about this or anything else QuickBooks related. Have a wonderful day!

GraceC:

Thank you for your reply. But I wish you folks would stop posting cut and paste information on basic usage of QBs Payroll.

Please read my posts. I am looking for a reason why the system miscalculated FIT. Is there anyone who actually works at Intuit who may be aware of why this would have happened? To me it is a bug. Please see my last post. Why would the system calculate less FIT in 2019 when the employee made considerably more money than they did in 2018?.

Of course I always have the latest updates. The system warns you if you don't.

Your reply is less than helpful.

QuickBooks Desktop Payroll is compliant with the IRS, csp54321.

As long as the tax table is updated, the taxes are computed correctly. You can manually calculate these taxes to check. Refer to Publication 15 Circular E to get the correct rates and calculation. 

• Publication 15 (Circular E), Employer's Tax Guide For use in 2018
• Publication 15 (Circular E), Employer's Tax Guide For use in 2019

Let me know if you have additional questions.

MaryLureenM,

You can say that. It doesn't make it true.

Why would QB Payroll calculate less FIT in 2019 when the taxable wages increased considerably over 2018?

I feel like I am getting the run around here and no one is listening to the real issue.

There is a bug in QB Payroll 2019, and Intuit doesn't want to admit it.

Hello there, csp54321.

I'm joining this thread to share additional details about FIT calculation.

As mentioned by FritzF, there are things we need to consider how FIT is being calculated. Those have a big impact on your FIT. You can run a report to see the YTD payroll data.

1. From the Reports menu, hover over Employees & Payroll.
2. Select Summarize Payroll Data in Excel.
3. Change the dates to 2019 and select YTD Reports.
4. Click Get QuickBooks Data.

In addition, this article will show us how the pay types and deductions affect federal taxes: Supported pay types and deductions explained. Depends on the pay type, it may or may not be taxable to FIT.

I also suggest contacting our Customer Support Team so they can review your payroll data. That way, we can check and verify what happened with your payroll taxes. Simply go to the Help menu and select QuickBooks Desktop Help.

Please comment again and tag me if you need more help. Stay safe!