Blog: Reporting

Tipped payroll carries more conditions per dollar than any other pay arrangement. The tip credit — the mechanism permitting a cash wage below the minimum — is available only where several requirements are satisfied continuously, and failing any one of them forfeits the credit entirely, retroactively, for every affected employee.

That all-or-nothing structure is what makes this area expensive. The remedy for a defective tip credit is not an adjustment; it is paying the full minimum ...

Filing Forms W-2 with the Social Security Administration by January 31 does not discharge your state obligations. Most states require their own filing, on their own schedule, with their own electronic thresholds and their own annual reconciliation return — a separate form that many employers do not know exists until a notice arrives.

The failure mode is specific and common: an employer completes the federal filing, considers year-end done, and misses a state ...

Form 941, the Employer's Quarterly Federal Tax Return, is the return that ties your payroll to the federal government's records four times a year. It reports wages paid, federal income tax withheld, and Social Security and Medicare taxes for the quarter, and reconciles those amounts against the deposits you already made.

Most employers file it without difficulty. The ones who get into trouble almost never do so because they misread a line — they do so because the return was prepared ...