Top Story
 The OMES Form EWC – Electronic
Warrant (Payment) Cancellation has been revised and is effective
immediately. The revisions include new language from the State Treasurer’s
office and changes needed under the new Higher Education Payroll Program when
canceling payroll EFT payments from the colleges and universities.
Also revised is the document “Instructions for Cancellation
of Electronic Payments” providing guidance on completing the EWC form.
Both the revised form and instructions are available under the
DCAR Forms link on the State
Comptroller webpage.
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PAYROLL
Several state agencies are still receiving the bank
routing number report, PARTICIPANT OLD/NEW ROUTING NUMBER, with employees that
have not been updated in the state’s HCM system.
As a reminder, OST’s current ACH application
automatically updates bank routing numbers based on the latest table of Federal
Reserve Bank routing numbers. This update allows the items to continue
processing for payment. When an update is made, the report is generated listing
the employee, the incorrect bank routing number and the correct bank routing
number. The report is distributed to agencies to update employee banking
information. These updates must be made so employee transactions will continue to
process without interruption due to routing number changes.
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Agencies are reminded to review and ensure employees have valid
forms on file for 2016. The exempt Form W-4, Employee’s Withholding Allowance
Certificate, expires on Feb. 16, 2016, and employees must submit a new form to
continue the exemption for 2016. If you receive an exempt W-4 after Feb. 16,
2016, do not process a tax refund to the employee or submit one to OMES for
processing. The W-4 will take effect on the next pay cycle; it is not
retroactive to the beginning of the year. The PeopleSoft HCM query:
GO_PY_TAX_EXEMPT_STATUS - Fed or State Tax Exemption can be run by agencies to
see who currently is claiming an exemption from income tax withholding. The IRS
has posted the 2016 W-4 form on the IRS website.
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Agencies are reminded to review and ensure employees have a valid
OTC Form OW-9-MSE on file for 2016. The form must be completed annually to
continue the exemption for 2016. If a new exemption form has not been submitted
for 2016, the employee’s withholding status must go back to the last valid IRS
Form W-4 on file with the employer. If you receive an exempt Form
OW-9-MSE after processing a payroll, do not process a tax refund to the
employee or submit one to OMES for processing. The new exemption form will take
effect on the next pay cycle; it is not retroactive to the beginning of the
year.
As a reminder, a nonresident spouse of a nonresident service
member may be exempt from Oklahoma income tax on income from services performed
in Oklahoma. OTC Form OW-9-MSE must be completed and returned to the employer
with the required documentation. The instructions contains a list of requirements the employer must meet before the withholding exemption will be allowed. The
form must be completed each year the exemption is to be claimed.
This exemption will require an update to the employees' 'State Tax Data' in PeopleSoft. The Special Tax Status will be changed to:
"Maintain Taxable Gross; SWT zero unless specified in 'Additional
Withholding' below." This does not affect the Federal Tax Data.
Federal withholding will still be calculated based on the IRS Form W-4 in
effect.
Although exempt from state income tax withholding, the income is
still reportable on the W-2 as Oklahoma wages. Employees with questions
regarding this should contact their tax accountants.
The Oklahoma Tax Commission has additional information and a
section of Frequently Asked Questions on its website. The
form may be found by clicking here.
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The following are terms frequently used for different types of
W-2s based on when the form is completed.
Original W-2: Form W-2 that was originally issued to an
employee by Jan. 31.
Reissued W-2: Original Form W-2 reissued to an employee due
to the original form being lost, misplaced, not received, etc. Write ‘REISSUED
STATEMENT” on the employee’s new copies. A reissued W-2 can be produced at any
time because the data is not being changed. The form can include a “reissue
date”.
Corrected W-2: Used to correct the original W-2 when an error
has been discovered before OMES submits the file to the Social Security
Administration (SSA). “CORRECTED” must be written on the employee’s new copies.
The form can include a “corrected date”.
NOTE: Corrected W-2 forms must be delivered to OMES by Feb. 19, 2016.
Please send the original W-2, a copy of the corrected form and a letter explaining
why the correction is needed.
W-2C: Used to adjust the original W-2 (or corrected W-2) information
when an error has been discovered after OMES has submitted the file to the SSA.
NOTE: W-2Cs must be submitted to OMES as soon as completed and will be
filed with the SSA. Please provide an explanation of the changes from the
original W-2.
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Pursuant to Internal Revenue Code Section 6056 of the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”), as a large employer, we are
required to file an informational return with the IRS related to the offer of
health coverage to employees. Additionally, we must provide employees with a
statement that includes the information we will be providing in our IRS filing.
This “Employee Statement” is the IRS Form 1095-C which includes information
about health insurance coverage offered to state employees, their spouse,
and dependent(s).
For employees that have worked in multiple agencies during the
year, only one 1095-C form was produced. This combined 1095-C form included
information related to the employee across the multiple agencies. The agency on
record as the primary agency as of 12/31 received the 1095-C to distribute.
NOTE: Only employees eligible for an offer of health coverage or
those in a stability period with an offer of coverage will receive a 1095-C
form for 2015. Not all employees will receive a 1095-C form.
In addition to the 1095-C
form, state agency employees that enrolled in health coverage will receive a
1095-B form from their insurance carrier. The 1095-B form provides information
about who was covered and the periods of coverage.
The IRS has posted a set
of questions and answers
that introduce the new Forms 1095-B and 1095-C. The questions and answers
explain who should expect to receive the forms, how they can be used, and how
to file personal tax returns with or without the forms. Please share this
information with your employees.
For questions related to ACA reporting, please contact Kristen
Elsenbeck, human resources coordinator: 405-521-3947; kristin.elsenbeck@omes.ok.gov.
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1099 INFORMATION
All
1099 corrections for 2015 or for previous years need to be submitted to OMES
and we will report the corrections to the IRS.
If you should have any 1099s that are returned by the vendor requiring
changes, please issue a ‘corrected 1099’ to the vendor using the blank forms
provided with the original 1099s or you may contact OMES to print one for you. Send copies of the incorrect 1099 and the
correct 1099 along with any documentation to support the change to OMES. Please contact Beth Brox with any questions
at 405-522-1099 or Beth.Brox@omes.ok.gov.
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ACCOUNTING
For agencies still submitting hardcopy vouchers and who have
been approved for a rush payment, when delivering the voucher to OMES Central
Accounting and Reporting-Transaction
Processing at 5005 N. Lincoln Blvd., Suite 100; please take it to the
receptionist inside the CAR office and tell her that it is a rush. This will
usually be Norcetta who will let us know a rush payment has been delivered. Avoid
just putting the voucher in the bucket for incoming documents since it may not
be seen in time for the rush processing cut off.
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Please be sure to verify that the form versions of all OMES
Forms being used by your agency are the latest ones. We normally notify
agencies when there are changes to the forms, but some agencies occasionally
continue to use the outdated forms. These are usually rejected since the
revisions often relate to something new that is necessary for the form. To
confirm you have the latest version of the financial related forms you should
go to the above link where forms are available for review and printing.
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The Financial Reporting Unit (FRU) of the Central Accounting
and Reporting division of OMES is assuming the audit and reporting duties for those
agencies participating in the Alternate System for Settlement of Miscellaneous Claims
Program. This post-audit function was being performed by the Transaction
Processing Department, but staff reductions have given us the opportunity to
look at other resources within the division. FRU is preparing a schedule for
the audits and should soon begin contacting the affected agencies to start
scheduling the audits.
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HIGHER EDUCATION
Higher education institutions
paying the Oklahoma Tax Commission for state withholding taxes beginning in
calendar year 2016 must include both the Tax Commission’s “WTH” account number and
the filing or pay period on the voucher. It is our recommendation that the
account number and the filing or pay periods be submitted as the Invoice ID. If
this is not feasible because of system limitations, then the information should
be included in the Payment Message field and can be submitted on the Payee
Record Layout in positions 301-378. Both the Invoice ID and Payment Message
information will show on the Misc Inter/Intra Agency report.
Payments for other taxes paid to
the Oklahoma Tax Commission should also include the account and filing or pay
periods information. This would be prefixes such as STS, SLP, etc. It is not
necessary to include the institution’s FEI number on the voucher.
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With the change in Higher Education payroll processing, the
proper accounting and reconciling for cancelled warrants becomes more
important. Because agencies must
transfer the amount required for each payroll claim to the 78900 class-funding as it is processed, the ability to offset
future PFT amounts for cancelled warrants is not available. Therefore we created a process to allow for
PFT reversals to return the funds from the cancelled warrant to the original
funding source which is already in production.
Keep in mind that this is for cancelled warrants, not for warrants being
reissued.
The PFT reversal process currently being used is being
revised to ensure proper cash balances are maintained. The change primarily relates to the account
coding on the 78900 class-funding on the PFT reversal. We
are currently targeting March 1 for putting the new coding in the system. The new requirements will be published by
Feb. 12 on the CIO website utilized during the higher ed payroll processing
change process. The changes will also be
covered in a webinar scheduled for Feb. 22.
Notification containing the webinar login will be distributed through
govDELIVERY about two weeks prior to the webinar.
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