NYS Department of Labor employer asking when are federal unemployment taxes due - need help with deadlines
I'm a small business owner in NY and I'm getting confused about when federal unemployment taxes are due. I know I have to pay SUTA to NYS Department of Labor but I'm not sure about the federal FUTA deadlines. My accountant is out of town and I don't want to miss any payments. Does anyone know the specific due dates? I have 3 employees and this is my second year in business so I'm still learning all the tax requirements.
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Emma Wilson
Federal unemployment taxes (FUTA) are due quarterly if your liability exceeds $500. The quarterly due dates are April 30, July 31, October 31, and January 31. If your annual FUTA liability is $500 or less, you can pay annually by January 31. You'll also need to file Form 940 annually by January 31 (or February 10 if you deposited all FUTA tax when due).
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Javier Torres
•Thank you! So if I'm understanding correctly, I need to check if my quarterly liability is over $500 to know if I need to pay quarterly or can wait until January?
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QuantumLeap
yeah the federal stuff is separate from what you pay to NYS Department of Labor. i think its like 6% on the first $7000 of wages but you get credits if you pay your state unemployment taxes on time
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Malik Johnson
•Actually it's 6.0% FUTA rate but you can get a credit of up to 5.4% if you pay your state unemployment taxes timely, so the effective rate is usually 0.6%. And yes, it's on the first $7,000 of each employee's wages per year.
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Isabella Santos
I had the same confusion last year! The NYS Department of Labor SUTA payments are completely separate from federal FUTA. For SUTA you pay quarterly to NYS on wages up to the state wage base (which is much higher than the federal $7,000). Make sure you're registered with both systems and keeping track of both sets of deadlines.
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Javier Torres
•Good point about keeping them separate. I've been paying my NYS Department of Labor quarterly reports on time so hopefully that helps with the federal credit you mentioned.
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Ravi Sharma
If you're having trouble getting through to the IRS about federal unemployment tax questions, I found this service called Claimyr that helps people reach government agencies by phone. They have a website at claimyr.com and there's a video demo at https://youtu.be/qyftW-mnTNI showing how it works. I used it to get through to the IRS when I had payroll tax questions and it saved me hours of being on hold.
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Freya Larsen
•Interesting, never heard of that before. Does it actually work for IRS calls too or just unemployment stuff?
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Omar Hassan
Don't forget you also need to file your quarterly Form 941 for income tax withholding and Social Security/Medicare taxes by the last day of the month following the quarter end. It's easy to mix up all these different tax deadlines when you're running a business!
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