Prepare Your Payroll Tax Forms
Lesson #4: Streamlining Tax Filings
In the last couple of weeks, you've learned how to use QuickBooks to pay your employees as well as your taxes and other payroll liabilities. This week, the fourth lesson of the QuickBooks Payroll Starting Points will show you how QuickBooks Payroll can help you prepare your payroll tax forms and stay compliant with your payroll taxes.
If you haven't set up your QuickBooks Payroll, go back to Lesson #1: Get Started with QuickBooks Payroll. To review other topics, go back to:
This Week: Prepare Your Payroll Tax Forms
This week we discuss payroll tax forms, and we present some pointers for handling these forms in QuickBooks. To learn more, click a link:
Tips
Make Sure Your Automatic Updates for Payroll Are Turned On
QuickBooks tax compliance experts continually monitor state and federal tax changes, so you don't have to. Save yourself the hassle of staying on top of all the payroll tax and forms changes and keep the Automatic Updates feature turned on. Automatic Updates tells QuickBooks to check for new payroll updates automatically. Automatic Updates are turned on by default. If you or someone else turned them off, it's a good idea to turn them back on now. Learn how.
Find Out What State Forms Are Available in QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll
The QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll service (available in QuickBooks 2006 and 2005 only) includes more than 160 quarterly and annual payroll tax forms for more than 48 states. QuickBooks also helps you prepare those forms at the end of the year. To find out which forms from your state are currently available in Enhanced Payroll, go to www.quickbooks.com/taxforms.
Use Reminders to Stay on Top of Filing Deadlines
Have a hard time remembering your tax filing deadlines? QuickBooks reminders make sure you remember important due dates. Learn how.
Prepare and Print Forms for Independent Contractors
Many employers think of independent contractors as employees, but the government treats them as vendors. At the end of the year, you must supply a Form 1099-MISC to each independent contractor who worked for you that year, and you must file a Form 1096, which is a summary of your 1099 forms, with the government. Learn more.
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Resources
QuickBooks Resources
Use these valuable resources to get the answers you need:
- QuickBooks Help: Access the program Help within the software for technical or troubleshooting issues. From the Help menu in QuickBooks, select QuickBooks Help.
- QuickBooks Knowledge Base: Get answers to thousands of QuickBooks questions.
- QuickBooks Message Boards: To ask questions of users like you, use the QuickBooks Community Message Boards.
- QuickBooks Payroll News: For a summary of all payroll updates for the current year, go to the Payroll News page.
Additional help options include:
Free Callback Support
As an active QuickBooks Payroll subscriber, you will receive free callback support*
to help you get started and manage your payroll in QuickBooks with confidence.
IRS Resources
Visit the IRS at www.irs.gov for more information about the following:
- Publication 15 (Circular E), Employer's Tax Guide
- Form W-4, Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate
- Form W-4(SP), Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate (Spanish Version)
Get Help from a QuickBooks Expert
Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors® are usually accounting professionals and consultants who specialize in providing
local one-on-one help to small businesses using QuickBooks. Some QuickBooks Payroll users find it helpful to consult with a ProAdvisor
when they have questions on setting up a payroll in QuickBooks or to review their setup to make sure everything's good-to-go.
Search for a ProAdvisor.
Upcoming Issues
Future lessons will cover:
- Paying your employees and processing payroll
- Paying payroll liabilities
- Preparing payroll tax forms
- Getting the most out of QuickBooks Payroll
Quick Response
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