© 2021 American Payroll Institute, Inc. Two Indiana Counties Increased Income Tax Rates on October 1 Effective October 1, 2021, the Indiana Department of Revenue (DOR) has issued a new Departmental Notice No. 1. Two counties changed their income tax rates [DOR, Departmental Notice No. 1, How to Compute Withholding for State and County Income Tax, eff. 10-1-21 News, 9-28-21]. Counties with rate changes All 92 of Indiana’s counties impose a county income tax on residents of the county and on nonresidents who do not reside in another Indiana county with a principal place of business or employment in the county. Each county has one county income tax rate (i.e., tax rates are the same for residents and nonresidents). Employers withhold state and county income taxes from employees’ wages. Effective October 1, 2021, the following counties have tax rate increases: Owen increases to 0.025 from 0.016 and Warrick increases to 0.01 from 0.005. New rates for 2022 Departmental Notice No. 1 lists county names, county codes, and county tax rates and is updated twice a year (effective January 1 and October 1). A revised Departmental Notice No. 1 will likely be issued in December 2021, with an effective date of January 1, 2022. It will specify the counties that have rate changes taking effect next year. OCSE’s New Communication Center Coming This Month The federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) anticipates that its new Communication Center will go live on October 22. OCSE recently presented a demonstration of the new Communication Center, which is an enhancement within the OCSE’s Child Support Portal (see PAYSTATE UPDATE, Issue 16, Vol. 23). The webinar is available on demand until August 31, 2022, and is free to APA members. Need for secure communication Communicating with child support agencies can be challenging for payroll professionals because of the need to transmit certain personally identifiable information (PII) securely, as required by federal and state laws. Until now, employers have been able to use the Child Support Portal for a limited number of functions, such as reporting lump sum payments and terminations, updating information about their organization, or managing multi-state employer registration for new hire reporting. Contacting or securely exchanging information with state child support agencies or the OCSE outside of those parameters has been a longstanding challenge for employers. Different forms of information exchange, including fax, email, and mail, have differing security considerations and might involve a variety of encryption tools, requiring employers to maintain multiple transfer mechanisms and passwords. Employers that exchange information without encryption risk liability. Stakeholders including APA (see PAYSTATE UPDATE, Issue 15, Vol. 22) requested improvements to OCSE’s information exchange process. Beginning this fall, employers will be able to communicate with child support agencies on the portal using the new Communication Center application, which will speed up payroll processing and simplify secure information exchange. Portal access, registration To access the Child Support Portal, employers must be registered. New users can register online and can contact the OCSE for more information at employerportal@acf.hhs. gov or the Employer Services Team at employerservices@ acf.hhs.gov with questions. To use the Communication Center, registered employers must set up communication type preferences within the Portal. Communication types for employer- related child support topics are: e-IWO/IWO/termination, general case/program questions, lump sums, verification of employment, medical support/terminations, new hire/multistate employer reporting/quarterly wage, and payment inquiry. According to the OCSE, employers that use third parties might need to set up the communication preferences for the third party within the Portal. Employers with multiple FEINs can manage relationships within the Portal and indicate which employer profile will be associated with the Communication Center. Stakeholders The Communication Center will suppor t communication between: employers and state child support agencies employers and the OCSE and the OCSE and state child support agencies. APA encourages employers to use the new Communication Center when it becomes available, in order to take advantage of the efficiency and simplicity of the new centralized, secure communication system. October 4, 2021 Volume 23 Issue 19
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