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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. In general, the new government withholdings based on your W4 form is are designed to withhold less taxes than in previous years. It also depends on which option you choose, which we have outlined below. Reliant is not allowed to advise tell employees on how to fill out their W4 form, but we can educate them on what happens with the options that they are able to can choose. If you have questions, please seek the advise advice of a tax consultant.

Below is a list of possible options to choose when submitting a W4: 

REMINDER: Married couples where both spouses are employed are treated as two separate employees. Even though spouses share a fund number, they are paid on separate checks and have taxes withheld on their individual paychecks unrelated to what their spouse chooses for tax settings. (For example, if both spouses were to choose the option 1 below (married filling jointly) the system will give calculate taxes for each individual spouse using the standard benefit for 2 people deduction for a married couple (essentially quadrupling the standard deduction benefitamount), which will result in very little taxes (if any) being withheld, potentially leaving a married couple with taxes due at the end of the year.)

• Option 1) - select married filing jointly. Our payroll software assumes with this option This option assumes that the other spouse is not working and gives the full benefit amount of the standard deduction for 2 people and typically withholds a lower amount of taxes because there is a higher threshold before taxes will begin to be deducted.

For married couples, these options below will, in most cases, ensure a higher amount is withheld: 

• Option 2) -select married filing jointly and also check the box “multiple jobs/spouse works”. This has the same effect as option 3, in that it gives you the standard deduction for 1 person. It assumes two working people filing taxes with 2 incomes. 
• Option 3) -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 in this case would be based on the standard deduction for 1 person.
• Option 3) - select married filing jointly and also check the box “multiple jobs/spouse works”. 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 an option above (single/married filing jointly/multiple jobs) and then under section 4C add a specific monthly amount of extra withholding for federal taxes that you want to be deducted from each paycheck. The amount added here will be an additional amount withheld on top of whatever amount is taken out by the system each month based on the standard deduction you chose, which helps ensure a specific amount monthly is withheld monthly. However, please note that with this option, this tax amount will be deducted from every payment that is sent from Reliant, including separate backpay checks.