So fun story! After all of the adjustments made quarterly because QB had incorrectly calculated Social Security and Medicare taxes, my W-2s are wrong. Surprised? NOT! 

No idea how I'm going to fix this mess and get W-2s out on time. Not even sure where to start. I have corrected a minimum of 20 employees in 3 of 4 quarters. Now Social Security and Medicare Wages don't match what has been submitted and final pay checks don't match W-2s. 

Every time I check here to see if there is a resolution to the calculations, the QB Team suggests updating payroll before I run it. They must not be reading the thread. So frustrated!!

I know that this hasn't been easy for you, Andrea61.

I'm here to help you resolve this W-2 discrepancy.

Please know that the information on payroll forms comes from the data on the employees' paychecks. There might be an anomaly on paychecks that's why the Social Security and Medicare wages didn't match what has been submitted. To isolate the issue, you'll want to review all of the payroll transactions for the year. You can pull up the Payroll Detail Review report to check the taxes withheld for each employee. I'll guide you how:

1. Select Reports from the top menu bar.
2. Head to the Employees & Payroll section.
3. Select Payroll Detail Review.
4. Set the appropriate reporting date.
5. Review the amount of taxes withheld.

If the amounts are inaccurate, you may need to perform a payroll adjustment to correct them. I'd also recommend getting in touch with our technical supports so we can look into your accounts in a secure environment. Then, investigate what's causing the mismatch. Here's how:

1. Open QuickBooks.
2. Go to the Help menu, then select QuickBooks Desktop Help.
3. Click Contact Us.
4. Enter "Social Security and Medicare wages don't match Form W-2" in the description box.
5. Click Let's talk and then choose a way to connect.

Our representatives are available from Monday to Friday, 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M Pacific Time. 

Additionally, here's an article that you can read to be guided in filing and printing your W-2 forms:

• E-file Federal Form W-2
• Print Form W-2

Fill me in if you have follow-up questions or you need further assistance in dealing with your other tasks. I'll be around to help.

After my call got dropped twice, I finally ended up with someone who is really trying to help me. However, he first advised me that the Quarterly 941s and the W-3 don't need to match because they are different forms, then after some research, he is advising me to manually change the W-3 to match the 941s total. I'm not sure if he understands that the W-2s need to total the W-3. 

On our third hour now....

So after 3+ hours on the phone with QB advisor, he told me he would need to "escalate" the problem and I would be getting a call back from someone who could help with my problem. One week later, and nothing. Luckily I figured out and corrected the problem on my own. Customer service at it's "not" finest.

Please advise as to how you fixed the problem. I too am having issues with Social Security not properly calculating only one of the employees and I am having to manually fix it each week.

Thank you!

I too have had issues with my Medicare and Social Security calculations being incorrect for 1 employee (I only have 1 employee),  and having to make adjustments.  I had to make multiple calls to QB before I found someone who really understood the issue and how to resolve it.  

My primary concern is, why does this tax calculation issue keep happening and what is QB doing to correct it.  I have been working on QB desktop for 4 years.  2020 is the first year that I've had these issues with taxes.

QB, are you working on correcting these tax calculations issues?

 I had the same experience with this same issue including calls dropping, Representatives not having the knowledge to help me with the tax issue, and no call backs from Rep escalating issue.  It took about 6 calls to finally get someone who could help.

Good to know that one of our representatives resolve the incorrect medicare, @Nutch.

Let me share with you some information about incorrect Social Security (SS) and Medicare (MD) in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT).

First and foremost, this isn't the variety of customer service I want you to encounter. I'll take note of your feedback and forward it to our higher tier. This way, we can take action on our support. 

There are a few causes why SS and MD taxes are keep calculating incorrectly. These are the following:

• QuickBooks is not updated or there is an internet interruption during the update.
• Using the incorrect tax table version.
• Employee's YTD is off.

To isolate the dilemma, ensure that your QBDT is 4 (R4) and the tax table version is 22104. To check the status, please follow the steps below. 

QBDT: 

1. Open your account.
2. Press F2 or Ctrl + 1. 
3. Check the version and release in the Product information window. 

Tax table: 

1. Go to the Employees tab.
2. Select Get Payroll Updates.
3. You'll see the tax table version beside the Payroll Update Info button.

If you're using the updated versions, let's check the employee's paychecks if there are any discrepancies or zero deductions for the SS and MD amounts. Please pull up the Payroll Detail Review report to verify the taxes withheld and the difference. You can follow the steps presented by KlentB above. 

Once you're on the report page, click the Customize Report button, then go to the Filter tab, and choose Multiple payroll items. See the sample screenshot below for your reference: 

For more details, check out this article: QuickBooks Desktop calculates wages and/or payroll taxes incorrectly.

Also, QuickBooks live agent has advanced tools to correct the incorrect amount. 

Additionally, I've added some pages about how the taxes calculate and other related topics. 

• How QuickBooks calculates payroll taxes
• Payroll items on a paycheck are not calculating or are calculating incorrectly

Let me know if you have follow-up questions. I'm glad to help. Keep safe. 

I found that QB had done a "payroll checkup" at the end of the first quarter. It made adjustments that actually made me overpay on Social Security and Medicare taxes. So for the next 3 quarters, it automatically made adjustments to under withhold. That resulted in quite a mess when I was trying to finish the year. I ended up filing an adjusted 941 for first quarter and that corrected the year-end numbers.

Frustrated now as I am getting notices from the IRS that each quarter I had late payments that resulted from the adjustments that were made under withholding on random payrolls. 

If this happens again this year, I am going to be very upset.

As a follow up, I was never contacted by QB after my lengthy conversation to resolve the W-2 issue. I ended up talking to or outside auditors and they gave me some tips to try to isolate the problem. 

I'm jumping on this thread too because I have the same problem with one employee out of 22 starting with 1/15/21 payroll. Hoping this might help some others on this thread.

I was able to determine that in my particular case, the difference is due to FFCRA Paid Leave credits that QB assigned to this employee when I paid her for time missed due to COVID. At the time, this was voluntary on the part of employers (after Jan 1, 2021), and the Act had not been extended. I was not aware that subsequently, the Act was extended through March 31, 2021, so I was misconstruing it as a miscalculation on QB's part when in fact it is an accurate adjustment to the employer portion of SS.

I know I am very late to the conversation, but I was having the same issues with only a few employees, and here is what I discovered.  We started offering Aflac, and the before-tax premiums that the employees pay seem to be subtracted not only from income taxable to income tax (box 1 on the W-2), but also from Medicare and Social Security tax.  When I account for that, everything seems to be calculating correctly.  Just my two cents.

Hello,

Just curious if anyone ever did you the correct information on how to fix and correct the FICA withholdings,  I have the same issue here.

Thanks

Kim

Thanks for joining us here, @Pro Grade Enterprises Inc.

I'll share the steps on how you can correct your FICA withholdings. As mentioned by my peer above @KlentB, you'll want to run the Payroll Detail Review report to check if there's a need for an employee adjustment. From there, create a payroll adjustment to correct your FICA taxes.

Here's how:

1. Go to the Reports menu at the top.
2. Hover towards the Employees & Payroll section.
3. Select Payroll Detail Review.
4. Change the reporting period to This year.
5. Review and calculate the amount of FICA taxes withheld.

If it's inaccurate, perform a payroll adjustment per employee. Make sure to use the correct paycheck date when creating the adjustment.

After the adjustment, run the report again to see if they are now correct. Doing the adjustment will also affect your tax forms, and moving forward your FICA taxes will withhold accordingly.

I'm also attaching this link here to help you manage payroll-related tasks. Just look for a topic that'll fit your concern: QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.

Don't hesitate to reply to this thread anytime if you still have questions or concerns with payroll taxes. I'm more than happy to answer them for you. Take care and have a lovely day ahead.

I am having this same issue with 4 out of 8 employees.  Started when we upgraded to 2020.

Thank you for raising your issue here in the Community, @Anne911.

There are several reasons why you're employees' payroll taxes aren't calculating accurately. Here's a list of them:

• The employee's filing status, number of allowances, or extra withholding amount was set up incorrectly.
• Pre-tax deduction items were included on the paycheck.
• Changes in pay frequency.
• Creating a paycheck with wages that has lesser or larger amount than what the employee normally gets in a pay period.

To ensure it's accurate, you'll want to review each piece of information that's causing the issue and edit if necessary.

However, if the information was accurate, you'll want to update your QuickBooks Desktop to the latest release and the payroll tax table. Then, revert the paychecks of your 4 employees to ensure the payroll taxes are calculated correctly.

If you still get the same result, I recommend contacting our QuickBooks Support Team. This way, they can further check on this matter and provide additional troubleshooting steps to get this fixed.

You might also want to learn how QuickBooks calculates taxes. This article will provide you with detailed information: How QuickBooks calculates payroll taxes.

I'm still open to your replies, @Anne911. Please let me know if you need further assistance running payroll. Have a good day!

Did this ever get fixed?

I am working on Q3 payroll for a client and having the same issue.

The employee and employer portions for ONE employee is not calculated correctly. 

Luckily, I run a spreadsheet to double check the amounts that QB has,and I caught it....

but it is off on only one employee??

Any solutions to this?

Good evening, @JonThe Account. 

Thanks for joining in on this thread. 

I recommend going through the steps my colleague provided above. From there, if you're still having issues, I recommend contacting our Customer Support Team for further assistance. 

Here's how: 

1. Go to the Help menu. 
2. Press the QuickBooks Desktop Help option. 
3. Click the Contact Us button. 
4. Give a brief description of the issue and hit Let's talk. 
5. Scroll down and choose to Get a callback. 

It's that easy! 

Keep us updated on how the call goes. I'm only a post away if you need me again. Have a great day! 

We are having the same issue.  Contacted [Removed].  The representative "James" was very rude and was not helpful at all.  He blamed the setup of the payroll itself and did not listen to what we were attempting to say.  We have contacted QB's at least 4 times for help.  We have updated payroll records and performed all of the things required.  We went with QB's because of the ease of use. We do not have hours to spend on payroll and calculating taxes for 28 employees. 

The same is true as other cases I see listed- there is a small percentage of employees that are calculating incorrectly. 

We changed nothing yet the gentleman I spoke with accused us of making payroll changes.  

The question is simple. How do we fix this issue?  I will not deal with rude and belligerent reps when we are simply asking for help.  We are looking at other payroll options because QB's seems to not care to assist it's clients.  

This is not the type of experience we want you to have, Officemanager. 

Thank you for trying to update payroll records and performing all of the things required to fix your issue. 

After making sure that you have a supported QuickBooks Desktop and updated tax table, you can check if you have reached the limit you set up to withhold for a certain period. Then, check the setup of each payroll item to see if they are correct.

Then, verify if you have the correct SUI rates or set up in your payroll.

Here's more information on how to troubleshoot paychecks calculated incorrectly.

You can run payroll reports to check your employee info, wages, taxes, deductions, and many more payroll reports in your QuickBooks Payroll. 

Let me know if you need further help with your payroll. I'm always here to answer them for you. Have a great rest of the day!

First let me start by saying when I was doing my 1st Qtr payroll taxes last week by Social Security Wages and Medicare Wages were off $33.23 on this in house spreadsheet that I use to check everything.  My reports in QB were printing out correctly. So since I could not find the problem I just put a line on my spreadsheet for the adjustment. So fast forward to yesterday. I encountered QB not withholding enough social security or medicare for 1 of my employees during my payroll run.  I always run a payroll summary and double check those taxes to make sure they are correct and they were off.  I ended up calculating them for each employee and found the 1 employee that it was wrong for.  I went back to the first of the year and double checked each paycheck.  In doing so I found that a liability adjustment was made on 3/31/23 for this employee for $33.23.  In the memo is said Payroll Checkup.  I did not make this entry.  I had no idea it was made.  I had searched QB for the 33.23 amount while doing my quarterly taxes but this never pulled up. So when I take the $33.23 x 6.2% and 1.45% I am getting the exact amount that QB is shorting those taxes on this payroll for him. I manually went in and changed the taxes but I am wondering if I could just delete the liability adjustment that QB made on 3/31/23.

email

Hello there,

I'd appreciate it if you could provide us with more specific information about your concern. What are you referring to? If possible, you can include screenshots. This way, we can build alignment and determine the best solution appropriate for you.

You can leave a response, and we are available to help. Have a great day ahead!

I tried to do a screen shot but it failed.  The problem is in the liabilities for the month of December.

for the IRS payment .  For some reason one of my employees is showing the social security payment listed 2 times instead of one. So when I go to make the payment to IRS the social security payment does not match the amount that is recorded in quick books.  It is suppose to be the same but it is off because of the one employee social security payment. 

I hope this makes sense??

[Attached file was remove by a moderator. It includes complete names.]

Welcome to the Community, Moving Lady.

Know that the information on payroll forms comes from the data on the employees' paychecks. There must be an anomaly on paychecks that's why when you went to pay in the IRS, it didn't match on their end. To isolate the issue, you'll want to review all of the payroll transactions for the year. You can pull up the Payroll Detail Review report to check the taxes withheld for each employee.

Here’s how:

1. At the top menu bar, choose Reports.
2. Go to the Employees & Payroll section, then pick Select Payroll Detail Review.
3. Specify the reporting date.
4. Review the amount of taxes that have been withheld.

If you notice any incorrect amounts in your payroll, it's necessary to perform a payroll adjustment to correct them. Additionally, I recommend contacting our support team so we can investigate your account in a secure environment and determine the root cause of the discrepancy.

To contact our support:

1. Sign into your QuickBooks Desktop.
2. Select Help at the top bar selection, then choose QuickBooks Desktop Help.
3. Click Contact Us.
4. Enter your verbatim in the description box.
5. Then tap Let's Talk, then choose a way to connect.

Our support team is available from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Pacific time Monday through Friday.

Additionally, here's an article you can read to be guided in filing and paying electronically in QBDT: E-file and e-pay federal forms and taxes in QuickBooks Desktop.

If you have other further questions about our security payment in using QBDT. Just leave a comment below. I’m just a post away.