13-P-011 December 2012 Payroll Processing

As 2012 calendar year-end approaches, the Office of General Services is making preparations for the issuance of calendar year 2012 Wage and Tax Statements (Forms W-2) and Non-Resident Alien Compensation Statements (1042-S).  Any 2012 paycheck adjustments processed after the established cut-off dates will update the employee’s calendar year 2013 balances; a corrected W-2 (Form W-2C) for 2012 will not be issued for the employee involved.

FINAL 2012 PAYCHECK

The final on-cycle paychecks for calendar year 2012 will be issued December 21, 2012.  Payroll transactions for the December 21, 2012 on-cycle paychecks will be posted to SMART on Wednesday night, December 19, 2012.  The final off-cycle paychecks for calendar year 2012 will be issued on December 28, 2012 (generated from the off-cycle processed on December 21, 2012).

PAYCHECK REVERSALS

Any 2012 paychecks that are undeliverable should be reversed as soon as possible.  SHARP agencies have until 6:00 p.m. on December 21, 2012 to enter paycheck reversals.  Any reversals entered after the 6:00 p.m. deadline on December 21, 2012 will update calendar year 2013 balances and will not be reflected in the employee’s 2012 W-2.

PAYCHECK ADJUSTMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTALS

SHARP agencies have until 6:00 p.m. on December 21, 2012 to enter paycheck adjustment requests for any 2012 paychecks.  Adjustments processed in the December 21, 2012 off-cycle payroll will be reflected on the employee’s 2012 Form W-2.  Please remember that only one adjustment can be processed per employee per off-cycle; this applies to agency entered adjustments, supplementals and centrally entered adjustments.  If a 2012 paycheck has been previously adjusted and requires additional adjustment, form DA-180, SHARP Paycheck Reversal/Adjustment/Supplemental, should be submitted to the Office of General Services, Payroll Section by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, December 17, 2012.

Payroll Services staff will make every effort to process all DA-180 forms submitted by 5:00 p.m. on December 17, 2012 for inclusion in the December 21, 2012 off-cycle.  However, if a large volume of DA-180 forms is received on the December 17, 2012 cut-off date, Payroll Services cannot guarantee that all forms will be processed as calendar year 2012 business.  Agencies can assist in the processing effort by submitting any DA-180 forms and the completed attachment as soon as you become aware a centrally entered adjustment is needed.

Adjustment requests entered after December 21, 2012 which are adjusting paychecks issued prior to January 1, 2013 will not result in a W-2C; the adjustment will update the employee’s 2013 payroll balances regardless of the reason the paycheck is being adjusted.  Likewise, any supplemental requests that are entered either by agencies or centrally by Payroll Services after December 21, 2012 will update the employee’s 2013 payroll balances.

REGENTS’ INSTITUTIONS: ON-CYCLE FILES

Regent on-cycle files for the pay period ending December 8, 2012, paid December 21, 2012 are due to the Department of Administration by 4:00 p.m. on December 13, 2012.

REGENTS’ INSTITUTIONS: OFF-CYCLE FILES

2012 Paycheck Reversals

Regent Institutions must submit all transmittals for 2012 paycheck reversals by 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 20, 2012 in order to update the employee’s 2012 W-2.  These files should contain a ‘C’ indicating current year business and the pay adjust check date field should contain the original check issue date for the paycheck being reversed.   Any paycheck reversals submitted after this date will update the employee’s calendar year 2013 payroll balances regardless of the paycheck issue date of the paycheck being reversed.  Reversals for paychecks issued prior to January 1, 2013 submitted after 4:00 p.m. on December 20, 2012 should default the pay adjust check date to January 1, 2013.

2012 Adjustments and Supplementals

In order to update employee balances for 2012, any paycheck adjustments and supplementals must be submitted no later than 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 20, 2012.  The Run C off-cycle for the pay period ending December 8, 2012 generated on the night of Friday, December 21, 2012 will have a check issue date of December 28, 2012; all activity for this off-cycle will be reflected in the employees’ 2012 W-2.  These files should contain a ‘C’ indicating current year business.  For supplementals and salary underpayments, the pay adjust check date should be blank; for all other adjustment types, the pay adjust check date field should contain the original paycheck issue date of the paycheck being adjusted and the date must be a 2012 date.

2013 Adjustments and Supplementals

With the exception of arrearages or refunds for OASDI and/or Medicare for tax years prior to 2013, any adjustments or supplementals submitted after 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 20, 2012, will be considered to be 2013 business regardless of the pay period end date to which the pay is related.  Since this activity will be considered calendar year 2013 business, the employee’s 2013 balances will be updated.  These files should contain a ‘C’ indicating current year business and the pay adjust check date should be a 2013 date (regardless of the original paycheck issue date of the paycheck being adjusted -- if the original check date was prior to January 1, 2013, agencies should default the pay adjust check date to January 1, 2013).

With the exception of OASDI and/or Medicare tax refunds or arrearages for tax years prior to 2013, Regents institutions may continue to submit adjustments and supplementals throughout the month of January 2013 regardless of the original pay period ending date of the paycheck being adjusted.  The activity will be processed on the regular Monday and every other Wednesday off-cycle schedule and will update 2013 payroll balances.

Arrearages or refunds for OASDI and/or Medicare taxes for prior calendar years and limited to those adjustments resulting from a change in Social Security status must be submitted on separate payroll interface files.  These files should contain a ‘P’ indicating prior year business and the pay adjust check date field should contain the original check issue date of the paycheck being adjusted.  Prior year OASDI and/or Medicare arrearages/refunds are the only situations in which a prior year indicator of ‘P’ should be used; payroll interface files for any other type of adjustments, which contain a prior year indicator of ‘P’, will be rejected and will not be processed.

Any prior year OASDI and/or Medicare refunds/arrearages identified after the December 20, 2012 deadline for the December 21, 2012 Run C’s off-cycle payroll will not be processed until the April 15, 2013 off-cycle payroll.  Since the files will be held, please do not begin submitting those files for processing until the week of April 8, 2013.  The deadline for submitting payroll interface files for the April 15, 2013 off-cycle is 4:00 p.m. on Friday, April 12, 2013.

GENERAL REMINDERS

United Way and Community Health Charities

The deduction END date on the general deduction page for 2012 United Way or Community Health Charities contributions for both the UTDXXX and UTFXXX deduction codes should be dated between December 09, 2012 and December 22, 2012 in order for the last 2012 deduction to be taken on the paycheck issued December 21, 2012. Agencies should verify the deduction end date for all employees enrolled in United Way and/or Community Health Charities to ensure deductions are taken correctly.  For calendar year 2013, agencies can enter a new row effective-dated between December 09, 2012 and December 22, 2012 in order for the first deduction for United Way or Community Health Charities for 2013 to be taken on the January 4, 2013 paycheck.  If the deduction is to be taken over 26 pay periods, a deduction end date of December 8, 2013 should be entered.  Agencies should enter the total pay period amount authorized by the employee when establishing the UTDXXX deduction code for 2013.

A batch process will run the night of December 21, 2012 to establish the fee portion (deduction code UTFXXX) of the 2013 United Way/Community Health Charities deduction.  The batch process will establish the UTFXXX deduction code with the same effective date and deduction end date as the UTDXXX deduction code for 2013.  This process will reduce the 2013 deduction amount (UTDXXX deduction code) by $.06 and create a UTFXXX deduction code which defaults to the Deduction Code table for a deduction of $.06; the sum of the UTDXXX and UTFXXX deduction codes for 2013 will match the employee’s authorized deduction amount.  Agencies should verify the deduction/fees set up for all employees enrolled in United Way and/or Community Health Charities beginning Wednesday, December 26, 2012 to ensure both the UTDXXX and UTFXXX deductions are taken correctly.

Tax Information

Pursuant to IRS regulations, all employees claiming an exemption from federal withholding must file a new W-4 each calendar year. To facilitate this requirement, an email notification will be sent on November 30, 2012 to all SHARP employees who are exempt from federal withholding.  Notifications will be sent to the employee’s email address listed under ‘Update

My Profile’ in the Employee Self Service Center at: https://sharp.ks.gov/psp/ESS/?cmd=login.  Notifications will be sent to the agency payroll supervisor email address for those employees who lack an individual email address, and agencies will need to distribute the notifications to their employees.  For agency payroll/human resource staff, a worklist will be created that will identify these employees. The worklist will be sent on November 30, 2012 to the agency staff that has been designated as the “agency payroll workflow administrator” through the SHARP security roles.  The worklist can be accessed two ways in SHARP:  from the Home page, click on Worklist under the Menu on the left side of the screen, or click on Worklist on the top right side of the screen next to Home.  For each employee on the worklist, your agency should contact the person to ensure the appropriate action is taken so that the desired tax status is in effect for 2013.  If your agency has no employees claiming an exemption from federal withholding the worklist will be empty.

SHARP employees are encouraged to use the Employee Self Service functionality to file their 2013 W-4s.  Employees should submit new paper W-4s by December 12, 2012 to allow adequate time for processing.

Agency personnel have until 6:00 p.m. on December 20, 2012 to enter all paper W-4s into the system.  Agency personnel are reminded that they also need to check the radio buttons ‘New W-4 Received’ on the employee’s ‘Federal Tax Data’ panel in SHARP for the effective-dated row they enter.  Agency Workflow Administrators also need to check the radio button ‘New W-4 Received’ on the electronic W-4s submitted by the employee for calendar year 2013.

The KPAY320 will be processed the evening of December 20, 2012.  This process searches for all employees for whom a W-4 email notification has been sent.  If a new W-4 has not been received, a January 1, 2013 effective-dated row will be placed in the Employee Tax Data record.  The January 1, 2013 effective-dated row will update the employee’s marital status to ‘single’ with zero exemptions.

For any 2013 paper W-4s (for employees claiming exemption from withholding) received between December 20, 2012 and January 1, 2013, agency personnel will need to enter the data with a January 2, 2013 effective date.  Agency Workflow Administrators will also need to change the effective date to January 2, 2013 for any electronic W-4s received in this time period.

The KPAY320 will only insert new effective-dated rows for federal withholding tax.  Employees should be advised to also review their state tax withholding to determine if changes are needed.  Employees working in Kansas will need to complete a new form K-4 to make any needed state tax withholding change.  See A&R Informational Circular 08-P-011 issued October 25, 2007 for information pertaining to the use of Form K-4.

The 2013 Form W-4 will be posted to the Office of General Services’ website as soon as it is available from the IRS.

In prior years, this same process was used to notify employees claiming the Advance Earned Income Credit (EIC) that a new W-5 should be filed.  The Education Jobs Act of 2010, enacted August 10, 2010, repeals IRC §3507, which allows low- and moderate-income employees to receive the advance payments of the earned income tax credit (EIC) through their paycheck, for tax years beginning after December 31, 2010.  Agency payroll/human resource staff should enter no W-5 information into the system for calendar year 2013. 

The KPAY320 will also enter a new-effective dated row in the SHARP federal tax data records on December 20, 2012 for employees with a special tax withholding status of ‘Non-Resident Alien’ to reflect that no 8233 form has yet been submitted for calendar year 2013.  The new tax data row will be dated January 1, 2013.  The 8233 indicator on the tax data records should be updated once a form 8233 for calendar year 2013 has been submitted.  A listing will not be provided for the 'Non-Resident Alien' updates, since reports are generated periodically throughout the calendar year to identify employees who have had non-resident alien earnings reported but whose current Federal Tax Data record in SHARP indicates the ‘Form 8233 Received’ checkbox does not contain a value of ‘Y’.

Deduction Information

All deductions for calendar year 2013 are biweekly except:

-Group Health Insurance: semi-monthly, deducted on the first and second pay dates of the month.

-Health Care Flexible Spending Accounts: semi-monthly, deducted on the first and second pay dates of the month.

-Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts: semi-monthly, deducted on the first and second pay dates of the month.

-Optional Group Life Insurance: monthly, deducted on the second pay date of the month.

-Health Savings Accounts: semi-monthly, deducted on the first and second pay dates of the month.

Arrearages/Advances

Every effort should be made to collect all arrearage balances either by personal reimbursement or paycheck deduction prior to the cut-off date of December 21, 2012.  Please refer to the most recent PAY007, ‘Deductions in Arrears Report’ and evaluate all existing arrearages for your agency and verify that collection will be made; agencies should continue monitoring the PAY007 reports to determine collections will be made by calendar year-end.  For sufficiently large balances that cannot be collected in one sum, agencies should establish a deduction override as soon as possible so paycheck deductions can be made and the balance collected by the cut-off date for year-end processing.  Also, as adjustments are processed from now until the end of the year, please monitor any new arrearage balances and collect in an expedient manner.

Any arrearage collections made by personal reimbursement that are collected after December 14, 2012, and prior to December 21, 2012, must be sent to the Office of General Services, Payroll Section for processing in order to impact the 2012 W-2.

Agencies are reminded that advance (‘ADV’) earnings are being paid to employees in situations where the employee’s earnings are not sufficient to cover certain deductions.  ‘ADV’ earnings are taxable wages at the time the earnings are paid; taxable wages are then reduced when the advance is collected (‘ADVNCE’ deduction).  Any ‘ADV’ earnings paid to an employee in calendar year 2012 will increase the employees’ W-2 taxable wages if the earnings are not collected by the end of the calendar year.  Agencies should collect any outstanding advances for payroll periods ending before December 8, 2012 by personal reimbursement as soon as possible.

W-2s

Please note that if an employee has an active mailing address on the SHARP Personal Information/ Modify a Person/ Contact Information page, the mailing address will be used for mailing the W-2.  If the employee has no active mailing address, then the home address will be used for mailing the W-2.  Since the majority of employees do not have a mailing address, most W-2's will continue to be mailed to the employee's home.  Please make any name, address, or social security number changes to the employee’s Contact Information page by 6:00 p.m. on December 26, 2012 to guarantee the updated information is included in the W-2 data. Although SHARP agencies have until December 26, 2012 to update the Contact Information page, it is strongly recommended that these changes be made as soon as they are known.  Regent's Institutions should make their name, address, and social security number changes by submitting them through the management reporting interface by 5:00 p.m. on December 21, 2012.  Since the W-2 form can only accommodate 30 characters in Address 1 and Address 2, please limit your employees’ address lengths.  Abbreviations should be used as needed to stay within the limit.

The W-2 programs will be executed anytime between December 27, 2012 and January 2, 2013.  W-2 forms will be mailed on or before January 31, 2013.  Notification of the W-2 mailings will be provided to all subscribers of the SHARP Infolist.

December Calendar

Attached is a revised calendar for the month of December 2012 that highlights the key payroll processing activity.  This calendar does not provide the same level of detail as that provided in this informational circular.  The attached calendar is intended for use as a supplementary reference tool to this informational circular.

If, in order to ensure the timely issuance of payroll, it becomes necessary to change any of the processing dates identified above, notification of the change will be provided to all subscribers of the SHARP Infolist.  SHARP users interested in subscribing to the Infolist, but who have not yet done so, can subscribe at http://da.ks.gov/sharp/infolist.htm.

Revised calendar for the month of December 2012

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