By Tonya Peters, Backgate Website,
The Backgate received an email this morning from TDCJ regarding the controversy over pay deducted from employee pay checks this month. The following letter was sent out to all TDCJ human resources offices statewide in "late" December as per TDCJ. Apparently the units did not post the notice on bulletin boards. If you do not have time to follow the main stream media news, you wouldn't have known this was coming.
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Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Payroll Update Notice
January 2, 2012
The following information is a payroll update notice for TDCJ employees
regarding Social Security and federal income tax changes effective January
1, 2012. This is being provided for Human Resources use and information.
Please post this notice on your employee bulletin board through March 31,
2012.
The Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011 signed by the
President on December 23, 2011 extends the reduction of the Social Security
tax rate for employees by two percentage points, from 6.2 percent to 4.2
percent, for an additional 60 days. Without further Congressional action,
this tax rate will return to 6.2 percent beginning March 1, 2012.
Updates are being made to the payroll system during the first quarter of
2012 to account for the required adjustments to the Social Security tax
withholdings. For most employees, this translates into a Social Security
tax deduction of 6.2 percent on their December 2011 monthly salary (payable
January 2, 2012) and 2.2 percent on their January 2012 monthly salary
(payable February 1, 2012). This will ensure that the total amount of
Social Security tax paid by each employee for the 60 day period will not
exceed 4.2 percent.
The Federal Income Tax Withholding tax table provided annually by the
Internal Revenue Service (FIT deduction) has also been revised for calendar
year 2012, and each employee’s net pay will be dependent upon their
individual taxable salary based on their deductions. These changes will
begin with the December 2011 monthly salary that will be paid on January 2,
2012.
Wonder how many units posted it. Of the dozens of emails the site has received, no one knew about it, and it wasn't mentioned on the unit. Some wardens and others didn't even know it was coming. One employee wrote that when she went in to H/R to ask why her check was shorted the H/R rep pulled the email out of a desk drawer to show her.
ReplyDeleteAnd this suprises anyone? This is just another example of how mismanaged this agency is!
ReplyDeleteIt happened to quickly for sufficient notice to go out to everyone....it boils down to Payroll processed our paychecks a day or two before the bill was actually signed at the last minute...so it really wasnt anyone's fault at TDCJ. They did what they normally do every month...the federal government waitied till the last day to sign the SS bill...by the time they passed it, payroll had already been submitted. They had no choice but to revert to the old law....
ReplyDelete