Warning / Peachtree W-2

[RitaB]

I have a company here where the owner frequently made errors in the SS/MC tax witthholding. (Can't wait to see what she does for 2011.)

Anyhow, when I post her payroll checks on Peachtree each month, I just adjust FIT to take care of her SS/MC tax error. At times, I have had to enter positive numbers for FIT. The payroll register adds correctly. The W-2's however, do NOT consider the sign of the FIT amount.

So, if an employee's FIT amounts were: -10, -12, and +5, the amount in box 2 of the W-2 is showing 27 dollars withheld. This is not cool, and I thought I might save somebody a headache by posting this disturbing experience. I will also notify Peachtree.

[ILLMAS]

I have a company here where the owner frequently made errors in the SS/MC tax witthholding. (Can't wait to see what she does for 2011.)

Anyhow, when I post her payroll checks on Peachtree each month, I just adjust FIT to take care of her SS/MC tax error. At times, I have had to enter positive numbers for FIT. The payroll registers and reports add correctly. The W-2's however, do NOT consider the sign of the FIT amount.

So, if an employee's FIT amounts were: -10, -12, and +5, the amount in box 2 of the W-2 is showing 27 dollars withheld. This is not cool, and I thought I might save somebody a headache by posting this disturbing experience. I will also notify Peachtree.

FIT you mean Fed? There shouldn't be positive Fed, SS/MC, State etc... For example if the employer calculated $22.95 of FICA out of $350, which should be $26.76, the proper way to correct this to amend the 941's first, if that is not an option then you would have to adjust the gross wages, FICA should always be 7.65% for employee & employer, you can always adjust Fed and State, however you cannot have postive numbers, since they are deductions. I will be happy to assist you, if you wish please send me a PM with some numbers and I will help you with the adjustment.

Marco

[ILLMAS]

Forgot to add, tax withholdings go from negative up to zero, you can adjust by a positive number however it cannot go above positive one.

[RitaB]

Hi, Marco. I appreciate your reply. I have over-ridden amounts to make sure all the original reports and W-2's are correct.

My client simply makes errors on the CHECKS and I adjust FIT (that's the heading on Peachtree payroll register) to accomodate the owner's errors in calculating SS/MC.

When you enter the FIT on the CHECKS in Peachtree, you normally do indeed enter a negative.

In my original example, the Peachtree Payroll Register shows -17 for the FIT amount. That is absolutely correct.

Box 2 of the W-2 SHOULD say 17. Peachtree SHOULD take the absolute value of the SUM of the FIT entries, (and the sum is -17), and print 17.

For Box 2 of the W-2, Peachtree is adding the absolute value of all the INDIVIDUAL FIT amounts and printing 27.

I have already over-ridden the amount in Box 2 of the W-2, just wanted to help others. First time in 16 years I have had a client this bad at multiplying by 0.0765. It will be worse for 2011.