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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. But also, in general, the new W4 form is designed to withhold less. The other reason could be that the employee is using an outdated (prior to 2020) W4 and needs to submit the latest version.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 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, this option typically withholds less taxes (there's a higher threshold before taxes begin to be deducted):

• 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 withholds a lower amount of taxes. 

For married couples, these options below will in most cases 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) and then under section 4C add the specific monthly amount of extra withholding for federal taxes that you want to be deducted from each paycheck. 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.

If claiming dependents, the new W4 deducts a credit from your total tax withholding per child. Therefore, if the desired outcome is to allow for more taxes to be deducted per paycheck you may NOT want to take this dependent credit on your form.