Does anyone have an issue with 2021 W4 not calculating Federal taxes for employees?

Thanks for reaching out to the Community, MotherJo.

I've reviewed our ongoing/solved investigations and can confirm there's currently no records of subscribers reporting that federal taxes aren't being calculated.

Federal tax withholding is based on the details your employee listed on their W-4 form. Wages earned to date do play a factor. I'd recommend reviewing the IRS Federal Income Tax Withholding Methods for 2021 to learn more about how the process works. You can look at the wage bracket for your employees and see if they have any federal tax liabilities from year-to-date.

If it appears they should have a withholding calculated for 2021, please let me know. I'll be able to help you dive deeper to see what may be causing the deductions not to calculate.

I've additionally included a useful video about paycheck calculations that may come in handy moving forward:

I'll be looking forward to hearing back from you. Have an awesome Friday!

I just switched to quick books desktop and was having this problem.  As it turns out I had my payroll schedule set to annual instead of biweekly.  Not sure if that helps but another place to check!

Thanks for joining us here, @ibpeterson.

I'll share some information about calculating federal taxes. Regardless of the payroll schedule, QuickBooks calculates Federal withholding taxes based on 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

I've also noticed that you've already posted the same question on the Community page, my colleague @Jen_D has posted her answer with steps and recommendations on how to check why taxes aren't calculated with your QuickBooks Desktop payroll.

Please refer to this link for details: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/employees-and-payroll/re-i-added-a-new-employee-an....

I'm also attaching this link to guide you with filing your taxes. Feel free to check: Year-end guide for QuickBooks Desktop.

Please let me know if you have other questions or concerns with payroll taxes. I'm more than happy to assist you. Have a wonderful day ahead.