2011 has been full of many unique tax rule changes.  One of which is the change of the Social Security rate for employee's withholding.  Ordinarily the rate for Social Security has been the same for the employee's withholding and the employer's match.  As a part of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, the employee tax rate for social security is 4.2%.  The employer tax rate remains at 6.2%.  The Medicare tax rate also remains at 1.45% for employee and employer each respectively.

If you use payroll software to calculate your payroll, please be sure to update your software regularly.  This is a good practice at any time.  Some software updates have to do with patches to other issues within the payroll program.

If you hand calculate payroll for your company, please keep yourself aware of any new tax provisions.  While changes to payroll taxes during a year are rare, they can and do happen at times.  Not keeping up with these changes could require you to amend your payroll tax returns, and possibly even your employee's W-2's.

Perhaps now is the time to get in touch with D.K. Arndt, P.C. to discuss what we can do for you.  Contact us at any one of our four locations today to schedule an appointment regarding your payroll/bookkeeping needs.