State unemployment tax calculations

Thanks for letting us know about your state unemployment tax calculation issue, @rhowie. Let me provide some insights about this. 

When you enter the correct rate in the setup for a certain quarter, it would also show the same amount in the report. To verify, let's go to the Payroll Item list window.

1. From the Lists menu, choose Payroll Item List.
2. Double-click State Unemployment.
3. Click Next, and select Next again to view the rate.
4. Change the unemployment rate, if incorrect.
5. Select Next. By default, QuickBooks Desktop marks payroll items as subject to, or exempt from, SUI according to your state's guidelines.
6. Choose Next and click Finish.

To correct an employee's SUI quarter or year-to-date wage base and tax amount, you must make a manual liability adjustment. You can apply the correction on the next paycheck (within the same year) provided the paycheck is for wages. 

For further details, please see this article: Correct year-to-date (YTD) additions or deductions on a paycheck when the wrong tracking type was us....

Note that the rate in the report will still show a value of 0.0028019%. But don’t worry, it won’t affect anything as long as the wage base is zero.

I'm also adding this link to help you fix incorrect State Unemployment (SUI) or withholding (SIT).

Keep me posted if you have further concerns with your state unemployment tax calculations. I'll be here to assist you. Keep safe always.

Thank you for replying.  I went through the payroll item list and verified that I do have 0.0% in all quarters.  Our State unemployment doesn't come out of the employee paychecks, it is all company paid.  So I need to do a manual liability adjustment on each employee?  I'll have to do this all year?  Is there any way to stop it from calculating the 0.0028019%?

Thank you!

Hi there. rhowie.

State Unemployment Insurance (SUI) is only paid by the employer unless your state is AK, NJ, or PA that requires employees to contribute. If you're one of these states, I suggest you contact your State. They can provide instructions on how to handle it.

In case you want to edit SUI rate, you can follow the steps below (QuickBooks Online Payroll Enhanced steps):

1. Go to the Gear icon, then select Payroll settings.
2. Select State Taxes.
3. In the State Unemployment Insurance (SUI) Setup section, select Change or add new rate.
4. Enter your new rate and its effective date.
5. Click OK to save your changes.
   
   

For those paychecks that were already created with the wrong rate, QuickBooks will retroactively adjust them to correct your tax liability. If your rate was wrong in a previous quarter you may have an overpayment or owe extra tax money to the state and need to make a tax payment.

If you're using other versions of payroll, you can refer to this article for the steps on how to update State Unemployment Insurance (SUI) rate: Update your State Unemployment Insurance (SUI) rate in QuickBooks or Intuit Payroll.

If there’s anything else you need assistance with in managing your payroll, you can always get back to me. I’ll be around to help. Have a good one!

Our State unemployment is all company paid, but I do have to report the amounts per employee to them.  I verified that I have 0% entered for every quarter.  When I print the liability report, it is calculating an amount more than 0.  If I put 0, shouldn't it calculate 0?  So I'll go and adjust the amounts to zero per employee, but am I going to have to do this all year?  How do I make it calculate 0 like what is entered?  Thank you!

@AlexV  thank you for the reply and info.  I have QB Desktop Pro 2019 release R15P and the latest payroll update.  I also did the rebuild.  When I go in and look at the employee's amount, I see that the state unemployment was only calculated on the first check of the year, January 14.  So I think it will be ok for the rest of the year?  Maybe it's because some of that pay period was in 2020?  I'll go in and adjust all those to zero.  Thank you for the help!

Thank you!