California Payroll Instructions

To enter California withholding information for an employee in your Goldenseal company file, follow these steps:

1. Choose Employees from the Accounts menu.
2. Locate the employee record.
3. Click the Payroll Setup button.
4. Enter the employee's marital status into the Marital Status field (see note below).
5. Enter the number of federal dependents into the Federal Exemptions field.
6. Enter the number of California dependents into the State Exemptions field.
7. Enter the California Tax Package into the Tax Package field. HINT-- If you don't see it in the list, you'll need to import the tax info first.
8. Click OK.

Additional California allowances are claimed by the employee on the DE-4 or W-4 form, and each may be allocated as either an Estimated Deduction or as a Tax Exemption Credit (see CA Employers Guide, Method B).

Allowances to be used as Tax Exemption Credits should be entered into the State Exemptions field in the Employee Account. Allowances to be used as Estimated Deductions should be entered into the Other Exemptions field in the Employee Account.

California charges SUTA on the first $7,000 of wages for each employee. The percentage rate depends on the employer's experience rating. In 2008 the rate is 3.4% for new companies, and between 1.5% and 6.2% for established firms.

To enter your California SUTA tax rate into the Goldenseal payroll software, follow these steps:

1. Choose Payroll Setup from the Costs menu, and choose Tax Items from the submenu.
2. You'll see a list of Tax Items. Locate California SUTA tax in the list, and double-click on it. HINT: If you don't see California SUTA in the list, you'll need to import your state's payroll info first.
3. Enter the percentage rate that you pay into the percentage field to the right of Calculation method.
4. If the cutoff amount has changed, enter it into the dollar field to the right of First Adjustment.

California has a compulsory state disability insurance which is a fixed percentage of wages, up to a cutoff amount. This is an employee deduction. In 2008 the rate is .8% including paid family leave. The tax applies on the first $86,698 in wages.

California Worker's Comp Insurance charges different rates for different types of work. in Goldenseal, you can handle that by entering the comp rates as a category tax, with different rates for different types of work. You set the rates in the Category Systems that you use for your job costs.

For some industries there are two different comp rates for experienced and inexperienced employees (with a cutoff wage rate to distinguish between them). You can enter two different rates into each Category System to handle that.

Click the link for more about setting up California Worker's Comp Rates.

California assesses an employment training tax. This tax is paid by the employer, and is in the CA Employee Training tax item. In 2008 this tax is .1% of wages, applied only to the first $7,000 in wages.

Use the following to determine the value for the Marital Status popup menu in each Employee account:

• Single- single employee with one personal exemption
• Married- married employee with two personal exemptions
• Dual Income- married employee with one personal exemption
• Head of House- employee claims Head of Family status or is single and claims 2 or more withholding allowances
• Other- not used

Payroll Tax Office-- 916 255-1965
Worker's Comp-- 415 777-0777

State of California-- Employment Dev. Dept
Box 942880 Sacramento CA 94280

Northern California-- Medical marijuana plant.
Southern California-- Pink plastic flamingo, wearing shades and carrying movie script.