Tax Codes Setup Field List

The system supplies an identifying code for income taxes.

At the Tax field, type a valid code or use the adjacent navigation buttons or Finder icon to select a tax. The Finder lists only those taxes that have already been activated for use with your payroll.

To add a new income tax for your payroll, click the SelectIncome Taxbutton at the bottom of the window to display a list of all tax update-supported taxes, even the ones you have already activated.

Note: Sage HRMS Payroll provides two types of employment insurance tax codes: EIRx (federal) and QEIRx (Quebec). When assigning the employment insurance tax to Quebec employees, use the QEIR1 to QEIR5 codes instead of the EIR1 to EIR5 codes. 

The system displays a description for the tax you selected. You can accept the description supplied by the system or enter a new description. The Description field is required.

This button displays a list of taxes that are supported by Sage HRMS Payroll tax updates. The taxes include all statutory income and payroll insurance taxes. Select a tax from the Finder to activate an income tax for your payroll.

The payroll program provides two types of employment insurance tax codes: EIRx (federal) and QEIRx (Quebec). When assigning the employment insurance tax to Quebec employees, use the QEIR1 to QEIR5 codes instead of the EIR1 to EIR5 codes. 

You can configure up to five federal employment insurance taxes (EIR1 to EIR5), and five Quebec employment insurance taxes (QEIR1 to QEIR5), to cover varying rates associated with your company’s portion of the employment insurance contributions. When you select one of the EI (or QEI) taxes, you specify the appropriate percentage to be used by the system in calculating the employer contributions for employees assigned the tax.

For Income Taxes, Type is a display-only field.

Enter a short description of up to 15 characters. The short description is required because it prints on T4s and Relevé 1s (when applicable). Make the first part of the short description meaningful, since the entire 15 characters may not print in the space provided on the T4 and Relevé 1. The short description is also used on certain reports and data entry windows in order to save space.

Enter up to 15 characters for the identification number (sometimes called account number, employer number, RCT number, or business registration number) your company uses when reporting to the tax authority. The reporting ID prints automatically on T4s, T4As, Relevé 1s, and other reports.

This field is used to determine which earnings and deductions and which other taxes can be included in the calculation base for each tax, as well as the order in which the calculation should occur. Learn more About Tax Levels.

If applicable, enter the percentage to be used in calculating the employer's portion of the tax.

Select the Inactive option if you want to prevent this tax from being assigned to any new employees. If you choose to make a tax inactive, the system displays the current DOS date in the As Of field to indicate the date on which you changed the tax’s status.

Setting a tax’s status to Inactive has no effect on the payroll calculation of employees who have already been assigned the tax.

Selectthe deductions to be included in the calculation base of this tax. Each deduction you enter into the box is deducted from pay before the tax you are adding is calculated.

Select the earnings to be included in the calculation base of this tax. If you click the Finder, the system displays a list of all lower-level accruals, benefits, and earnings.

You can use this tab to assign default expense and liability accounts to any number of distribution codes. If the tax you add involves employee liability only, set up only an Employee Liability account for the distribution code. If the tax you add involves employer liability only, set up Employer Expense and Liability accounts for the distribution code. And, finally, if the tax you add involves employee and employer liability, you can set up accounts for Employee Liability, Employer Expense, and Employer Liability.

If you use cost center posting, when you calculate payroll the tax amounts are distributed to the cost centers in which the taxable wages were earned.

Type a distribution code of up to six characters to define the set of default G/L expense and liability accounts you are setting up.

Type a name or description for the distribution code, in up to 15 characters.

Enter the liability account to post the tax or earning/deduction for any employee assigned this distribution code.

Enter the Employer Expense account to post the employer's portion of this tax for any employee assigned this distribution code.

Enter the Employer Liability account to post the employer's liability for this tax or earning/deduction for any employee assigned this distribution code.

The Employer Liability account column displays in the G/L Distributions field for the following types of earnings/deductions and taxes:

• Percentage of Base vacation and sick time accruals for which you have selected the Post The Liability option.
• Reported Tips earnings for which you have selected the Tip Disbursement option.
• Employer-only and two-sided deductions.
• Noncash benefits that are marked for posting to the general ledger.
• Taxes or portions of taxes paid by the employer.

Use the Finder to select the optional field codes you want to use with this employee. You can select only the optional fields that you have already set up on the Payroll Optional Fields window. When you select an optional field code, the program displays the description for the optional field.

If you want to set a default value for the optional field, double-click in the Value Set column to change it to Yes.

The Yes flag in the Value Set field alerts the data entry clerk that a seemingly blank optional field actually has an entry. By looking at the Value field, you cannot tell whether it has a “blank” default value or no value at all.

Type the value, or use the Finder to select one.

• If the optional field you selected requires validation, you must select a value that is defined for the optional field. However, if the optional field allows blanks, you can leave the default value field blank.
• If you select a value, the description of the value will appear in the Value Description column.