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Many employees are wondering why more federal taxes are not being withheld. For those who have been employed with Reliant prior to our payroll conversion, one of the reasons is that our new payroll system interprets the W4 form options differently than our previous system. The other reason could be that the employee is using an outdated (prior to 2020) W4 and needs to submit the latest version. Reliant is not allowed to tell employees how to fill out their W4 form, but we can educate them on what happens with the options that they are able to choose. 

For married couples:

• Option 1) - select married filing jointly. Our payroll software assumes the spouse is not working with this option and gives the full benefit of the standard deduction for 2 people and typically under withholds taxes. 

For married couples submitting a new W4 these options below can be chosen that in most cases will ensure a higher amount is withheld: 

• Option 2) - select the first box single/married filing separately. This does not affect how you will file your taxes at the end of the year, it is merely for the software to know how much taxes to withhold which is the standard deduction for 1 person.
• Option 3) - select married filing jointly and also check the box “multiple jobs”. This has the same effect as option 2 where it gives you the standard deduction for 1 person. It assumes two working people filing taxes with 2 incomes. 
• Option 4) - select married filing jointly (but leave the box "multiple jobs" unchecked "as is" on their existing form) but then under section 4C add the specific monthly amount of extra withholding for federal taxes that they want to be deducted from each paycheck. However, with this option, this tax amount will be deducted from every payment that is sent from Reliant, including backpay check