Payroll Processing for Washington State employees
There is a NEW Employment Security Department remittance that starts on Jan 1 2019 called Washington’s Paid Family & Medical Leave Program.
https://paidleave.wa.gov/employers#helpques34
The basics:
- The premium is 0.4% of the employees gross pay (2019 rate, capped at 2019’s SS cap wage of $132,900.)
- The employee is only subject to pay 63.3333% of the premium, to be withheld from their paychecks. (Employer can choose to pay entire premium)
- The employee portion is split to 1/3 for Family Leave, 2/3 for Medical Leave.
- The employer portion is due for those employers that have 50 or more employees.
- If the employer already has a medical and family leave plan in place, they can file for a Voluntary Plan to the State.
The site shows a clean example of what this will look like:
Withholding Example
As an example, an employee has earned $2,500 gross pay in a single pay period. The premium is 0.4% in 2019.
Total Premium Calculation
$2,500 * .004 = $10.
In this example, the total premium would be $10.
An employer may choose to pay this entire premium on their own. If they choose to withhold a portion from their employees, the maximum they may withhold can be calculated:
The Employee Portion
Family Leave: $10 * .3333 = $3.33
Medical Leave: $10 * .3000 = $3.00
The Employer Portion
Medical Leave: $10 * .3667 = $3.67
In this example, the employee would have $6.33 ($3.33 + $3.00) withheld from their paycheck. The employer would remit employee and employer portions and quarterly to the Employment Security Department.
Above is ESD’s explanation regarding the new deduction. Lastly, these funds for anyone who wants to benefit from this paid leave law won’t be available until January 2020. If there are additional questions regarding this provision taking place soon, don’t hesitate to refer to the website provided. If you have additional payroll-related questions not related to this, however, definitely give us a call – especially as year-end approaches; and all tasks coinciding with that. Or, you can simply click on the button below to get the ball rolling.
