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Exempt your employee from Federal or State Withholding

by Intuit•32• Updated 2 weeks ago

Learn how to set your employee’s Federal or State Withholding (or Income Tax) as exempt.

Your employees can claim exempt on their Federal Form W-4 or state form if they meet certain requirements. Exempt means they won’t have any Federal or State Withholding taxes deducted from their paychecks.

If your employee claims exempt, you should have a copy of the W-4 or state form for your records. Here’s how to set the Federal or State Withholding to exempt in QuickBooks.

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Set your employee’s Federal or State Withholding as exempt

QuickBooks Online Payroll

For a better experience, open this article in QuickBooks Online. Launch side-by-side view .

Go to Payroll, then Employees.
Select your employee.
From Tax withholding, select Edit.
Select the applicable Federal W-4 form if prompted.
In the Federal Withholding Filing Status ▼ dropdown, select Exempt (if applicable).
In the State Withholding Filing Status ▼ dropdown, select Exempt (if applicable).
When finished, select Save.

QuickBooks Desktop Payroll

Select Employees, and then Employee Center.
Select the employee you want to exempt.
Select Payroll Info, and then select Taxes.
From the Federal tab, on the W-4 Form ▼ dropdown, select the applicable form.
In the Filing Status dropdown▼, select Exempt.
Select the State tab, and in the Filing Status dropdown▼, select Exempt.
Select OK to save.

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