Oregon - Payroll Tax Items

County Taxes

•Oregon requires the employer to pay county taxes based on a percentage of wages.  The workers comp codes can be used to represent each county and then linked to each job on the Update Jobs > Payroll Controls Tab.   This way, the county taxes can be accrued with each time card entry.  Keep in mind that the workers comp rate is based on $100 of gross wages so the rate must be entered accordingly.   Be sure to note that the Workers Comp Accrual account field on the Payroll Properties Screen must be set up to represent the county tax accrual account.  

If you do not wish to accrue the county taxes in the manner listed above, then the Detail Report by Job report in the Payroll system could be used on a partial run basis for jobs that fall within a selected county in order to get the gross wage exposure and to calculate the total tax amount.  A general journal entry or an accounts payable invoice can be entered to create the accrual and to expense the appropriate jobs.

Workers Compensation Insurance

•Oregon's workers compensation insurance is currently based on $ 0.015 per hour and for the employer and employee.  The employee's portion can be set up as a local deduction based on an hourly rate with the local deduction report being used to recap the withheld amounts.  The employer portion cannot be accrued as burden through normal workers comp insurance codes as these calculations are based on a percentage of gross.  

The union codes may be used to accrue the employer portion for workers comp, however the burden amount will be accrued to union benefits payable instead of workers comp payable and the amount will be included on the union reports.  The accrual is not substantial and will not hurt job costing totals if it is missing.  For example, 100 employees at 40 hours per week would only amount to $60.00 of employer burden so it is not extremely critical to accrue this amount.