July 13, 2021 Interim Form Updates

US Tax Withholdings

The following tax parameters have been updated and are available as part of the Symmetry SPF 2021-R7, SPF 2021-R6, and SPF 2021-R5 releases.

Federal

Form W-4(SP) images fixed

Form Name: Certificado de Retenciones del Empleado

SPF Form ID: W4101SP

Images used in the wizard for Form W-4(SP) are now correctly displayed to the user. Please note that this did not affect the final generated PDF itself.

The Spanish version of the 2021 Federal Form W-4 has been revised to match the English version updated in the 2021-R1b release.

On page one, the IRS has added "Rev. December 2020" to the top left of the form.
On page three, under Step 4(b) – Deductions Worksheet, line 1, "10%" has been updated to "7.5%"

Arizona

Form A-4V corrected for Guided Mode

Form Name: Voluntary Withholding Request for Arizona Resident Employed Outside of Arizona

SPF Form ID: AZ103

When filling out the Arizona Resident Survey in Guided Mode: if a user selected that they work in Arizona, do not work outside Arizona, and selected “I am a Native American living and residing on a Native American reservation,” then Form A-4V was being incorrectly suggested. This form is for Arizona residents working outside of Arizona.

An additional question set has been created for the Arizona Resident Survey for people working only inside Arizona.

Arkansas

Form AR4EC will always require a filing status selection

Form Name: Employee's Withholding Exemption Certificate

SPF Form ID: AR101

A user is now always required to select a filing status when filling out the wizard for this form, regardless of the user’s qualification and selection for low-income tax rates.

Therefore, the AR.filingStatus tax parameter will now always be returned as well.

Form AR4ECSP updated

Form Name: Employee’s Special Withholding Exemption Certificate

SPF Form ID: AR102

The PDF for Arkansas Form AR4ECSP has been updated.

The spelling of "Qualifying" on the fourth and fifth check boxes has been corrected.
The phrase "2 or more dependents" on the fifth checkbox has been corrected.
The revision date has been updated from “12/2/2020” to “4/21/2021”

Form ARW-4MS wizard corrected

Form Name: Annual Withholding Tax Exemption Certificate For Military Spouse

SPF Form ID: AR104

The Opt In/Out question for Form ARW-4MS stated that the employee wanted to either opt in and withhold Arkansas taxes, or opt out and withhold Arkansas taxes.

Opting in is for the exemption of state tax, so this question has been changed to a Yes/No question for opting out of the exemption.

Additionally, the order of questions in the wizard has changed.

Form AR4EC updated

Form Name: Employee's Withholding Exemption Certificate

SPF Form ID: AR101

The AR4EC form has been updated to include the following message when choosing a filling status within the Low-Income Tax Rates section of the wizard:

Notice: Filing Status selection is required but has no bearing on tax withholding calculation if the user qualifies for and has claimed the state's low-income tax rates

California

Form DE 4 (English and Spanish Versions) updated

Form Name: Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate; Certificado de Retenciones del Empleado

SPF Form ID: CA101; CA101SP

The English and Spanish versions of California Form DE 4 have been updated.

Page 1:
- Line 1, allowances from Worksheet A and Worksheet B and Total Allowances have been split onto separate lines.
- Line 2 revised.
- Line 3 revised from a field where the employee writes "Exempt" to a box they check.
- Instructions have been updated (added the word "withholding").
Page 2:
- Information on resources and legal information has changed.
Page 3:
- 1) Worksheet A, line F changed
- 2) Worksheet B: line 2, line 8, and line 11 changed
Page 4:
- Worksheet C: line 1, line 8, line 9, line 13. 2020 updated to 2021 above the tables.
- Values in the tables changed.
- Revision date updated from “12-20” to “1-21” on all pages.

Georgia

Form G-4 updated

Form Name: Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate

SPF Form ID: GA101

The Georgia Form G-4 has been updated with the following changes:

Page 1
- Revision date updated from “02/15/19” to “05/13/21”
- Updated remittance address to the following: Georgia Department of Revenue Taxpayer Services Division P.O. Box 105499 Atlanta, GA 30359
Page 2
- Slight verbiage change to the last paragraph in the “O.C.G.A. 48-7-102” section.

Iowa

Iowa Resident Survey correctly presented for Guided Mode

The Iowa Resident Survey is now correctly presented for employees that meet all the following conditions:

Living in Iowa
Working exclusively outside of Iowa
Not working in a state without income tax, in Illinois, or in Washington, D.C.

Form IA W4 now displays FEIN on final PDF

Form Name: Employee Withholding Allowance Certificate, Certificado de exención de retenciones del empleado

SPF Form ID: IA101, IA101SP

The Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN) will now be printed in both sections on the IA W4 PDF (if it is passed in through the Registration Context XML).

This fix affects both the English and Spanish versions of the form.

Form IA W4 error corrected

Form Name: Employee Withholding Allowance Certificate

SPF Form ID: IA101

Corrected an error given to the user when attempting to select an option from the dropdown in the Itemized Deductions Worksheet, “Line B. Amount of your standard deduction using the below information.”

Kansas

Form K-4 now displays FEIN on final PDF

Form Name: Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate

SPF Form ID: KS101

The Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN) will now be printed on the final PDF for Kansas Form K-4.

Kentucky

Guided Mode null pointer error fixed

If a user selects "None of the above" in the Kentucky precondition check for Guided Mode, then clicks their browser back button, a null pointer will no longer be thrown.

Maryland

Form MW507M input corrected

Form Name: Exemption from Maryland Withholding Tax for a Qualified Civilian Spouse of a U. S. Armed Forces Servicemember

SPF Form ID: MD102

Both the third and fourth input box in the wizard were titled “State of permanent duty station.”

The third input box has now been corrected to “Name of permanent duty station.” The functionality of this input was correct and has not been changed, only the name.

Michigan

Typo corrected in Michigan forms wizard

For Michigan forms that ask for a Predominant Place of Employment, a typo has been corrected in the instructions:

“Note: The highest percentage predominant city is to be used to select your form for withholding AND percentages MUST add up to 100%.”

Michigan Resident Survey updated

The Michigan Resident Survey for Guided Mode has changed the list of cities for an employee’s predominant place of employment from a list of radio buttons to a dropdown list.

Additionally, the question text has been updated from “Which city is your predominant place of employment?” to:

“Please select your predominant place of employment. If your predominant place of employment is not listed, please select "None of the cities listed"

If you are unsure of your predominant place of employment, please contact your Human Resources department for confirmation.”

Form BC W-4 updated and name changed

Form Name: Employee's Withholding Certificate for City of Battle Creek Income Tax

SPF Form ID: MI111

The Michigan Form BC W-4 has been updated with the following changes:

Form name updated from BC W-4 to BC-W4.
Title updated from “Employee's Withholding Certificate for City of Battle Creek Income Tax” to “City of Battle Creek Income Tax - Employee's Withholding Certificate”.
Question updates/additions:
- Question three “3. Battle Creek Resident?” has been updated to two checkboxes, “Resident” and “Nonresident,” and relocated to the top of the form. The question numbering has been removed.
- New question set “3. Predominant Place of Employment” has been added, which matches the Predominant Place of Employment functionality present on several other Michigan local tax forms.
- New question “Office, plant or department” added to the first line on the form.
- New question “Employee identification number” added to the first line on the form.
- Exemptions for 65 or Older and Disabled are differentiated and no longer combined.
- Removed question “8. Additional amount you want deducted from each pay (if employer agrees).”
Instruction changes:
- Updated the penalty of perjury statement above the signature line.
- Updated the Exemptions and Dependents instructions.
- Warning added to not use P.O. box for home address (question 2 on new form).
- Removed revision date. New revision date has not been provided by Michigan State.
- New instructions for employers to withhold 1% tax if employee does not submit the form. Previously, the employer used to withhold Battle Creek income tax from earnings without exemptions.

The MI111 wizard has been updated with these changes where applicable.

Minnesota

Form MWR question added

Form Name: Reciprocity Exemption/Affidavit of Residency for Tax Year 2021

SPF Form ID: MN102

A new question has been added to Form MWR: “Do you return to your permanent residence at least once a month?" Selecting “No” will be ineligible to complete the form and an error message informing them of this will be returned.

Mississippi

Form 89-350 married filing statuses corrected

Form Name: Mississippi Employee's Withholding Exemption Certificate

SPF Form ID: MS101

If the user selects "Married (Spouse does not work)", SPF now returns the correct filing status of "M1" ("Married - spouse not employed") and checks the correct checkbox on the PDF.

If the user selects "Married (Spouse works)", SPF now returns the correct filing status of "M2" ("Married - spouse is employed") and checks the correct checkbox on the PDF.

Previously, these were reversed; M1 was being returned and selected instead of M2, and vice-versa.

Missouri

Form MO W-4 field made optional for Line 3

Form Name: Employee's Withholding Certificate

SPF Form ID: MO101

When filling out the wizard for Form MO W-4, the question “Amount to be withheld instead of the standard calculation” is now optional.

This field corresponds to Line 3 on the Form MO W-4, which is optional and may be left blank by the employee.

Form MO W-4 updated

Form Name: Employee's Withholding Certificate

SPF Form ID: MO101

The Missouri Form MO W-4 has been updated with the following changes:

Employer section
- Verbiage change to include the following additional remittance option:
  - Email: withholding@dor.mo.gov
Employee section
- Minor formatting changes
Revision date
- Updated from “12-2020” to “05-2021”

New York

New York Resident Survey dates corrected

Corrected the dates from 2019 & 2020 to 2020 & 2021 for the New York Resident Survey for Guided Mode for the following:

“I am under 18 years of age and did not have a New York tax liability for 2020 and do not expect to have New York income tax liability for 2021”
“I am over 65 years of age and did not have a New York tax liability for 2020 and do not expect to have New York income tax liability for 2021”
“I am a full-time student under 25 years of age and did not have a New York tax liability for 2020 and do not expect to have New York income tax liability for 2021”

North Carolina

Form NC-4 EZ exception corrected

Form Name: Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate (Short Form)

SPF Form ID: NC102

We’ve corrected an error in the NC-4 Form where users were unable to claim 0 for the question “Enter number of children under 17.” Users may now enter 0 and successfully submit the form.

Ohio

Form IT-4 wizard and tax parameters updated

Form Name: Employee's Withholding Exemption Certificate

SPF Form ID: OH101

On the Dependents question, there is now a computed field corresponding to Line 4 of the Form IT-4: “Total withholding exemptions (sum of line 1, 2, and 3).”
The field for “Line 5. Additional Ohio income tax withholding per pay period (optional)” has been consolidated onto the same page as Dependents and is no longer on a separate page.
The Reciprocal Resident Survey, Reciprocal Resident State, Military Spouse Survey, and Military Resident State questions are no longer necessary and have been removed. These were previously required for past forms that were merged into the IT-4 but are no longer needed for this form.
- Because of this, the OH.reciprocalResidentState and OH.militaryResidentState tax parameters have been removed.
Valid values for the employerInterventionReason tax parameter have been updated to "NOT_APPLICABLE - employerIntervention is null or false” and “%MILITARY_SPOUSE% - Employee has elected to file the military spouse exemption.”

Form IT-4 parameter added

Form Name: Employee's Withholding Exemption Certificate

SPF Form ID: OH101

A new tax parameter, OH.reciprocalResident, has been added that returns true or false, based on the user's selection to the following question from Section III of the form: "I am a full-year resident of Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or West Virginia.”

Oklahoma

Form OK-W-4 updated

Form Name: Employee's State Withholding Allowance Certificate

SPF Form ID: OK101

The Form OK-W-4 has been updated:

The printed revision date has been updated to “Revised 3-2021”
The title of the form has changed to “Employee's State Withholding Allowance Certificate” (formerly “Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate”)
Dollar values and instructions remain unchanged

Oregon

New Employee OPT IN/OUT Forms added for Metro SHS and Multnomah County PFA

Form Name: Employee OPT IN/OUT Form Metro Supportive Housing Services Tax (SHS) Multnomah County Preschool for All Tax (PFA)

SPF Form ID: OR102

Form Name: Employee OPT IN/OUT Form Metro Supportive Housing Services Tax (SHS)

SPF Form ID: OR103

Two new forms have been added to allow users to opt in or out of the new Metro Supportive Housing Services Tax (for employees living in the Metro District), or to opt in or out of both the Metro SHS tax and the Multnomah County Preschool for All Tax (for employees living in Multnomah County, within the Metro District).

The Oregon Guided Mode has been updated to ask a user to select one of the following:

“I work or live in Multnomah County”
- Returns the OR-W-4 and the Metro/MultCo OPT Form
“I do not work or live in Multnomah County, but I do work or live in the Metro District”
- Returns the OR-W-4 and the Metro OPT Form
“None of the above”
- Returns only the OR-W-4

Additional information on these taxes and forms can be found at: https://www.oregonmetro.gov/public-projects/supportive-housing-services/taxes-and-funding https://multco.us/finance/preschool-all-personal-income-tax

Metro/MultCo OPT employerInterventionReason description corrected

Form Name: Employee OPT IN/OUT Form Metro Supportive Housing Services Tax (SHS) Multnomah County Preschool for All Tax (PFA)

SPF Form ID: OR102

In the SPF Catalog for the new Metro/MultCo OPT Form, the regex was listed as “^(OPT_OUT|NOT_APPLICABLE)$”, but the description referred to “OPT_OUT” and “null” instead.

The description has been corrected to: "OPT_OUT - Your employer may be required to send a copy of this form to the Tax Administrator for review., NOT_APPLICABLE - employerIntervention is not applicable"

Spanish OPT IN/OUT Forms added for Metro SHS and Multnomah County PFA

Form Name: Metro Vivienda De Apoyo – Impuestos Personales(SHS) Multnomah County Preescolar Para Todos – Impuestos Personales(PFA)

SPF Form ID: OR102SP

Form Name: Metro Vivienda De Apoyo – Impuestos Personales

SPF Form ID: OR103SP

The Spanish versions of the new two new OPT IN/OUT forms for Metro SHS and Multnomah County PFA have been added. The English versions were previously added in the 2021-R5 release.

Form OR-W-4 (2021 Formulario OR-W-4) added in Spanish

Form Name: Retenciones de Oregon

SPF Form ID: OR101SP

SPF now supports the Spanish version of the Form OR-W-4. The 2021 Formulario OR-W-4 has been added with a revision date of “11-13-20.”

Form OR-W-4 updated

Form Name: Oregon Employee's Withholding Statement and Exemption Certificate

SPF Form ID: OR101

The additional withholding input will now accept only whole numbers instead of dollar values. The form itself always has “.00” printed after the amount; this was causing additional withholding to have “.00” printed twice. This change is reflected in both the English and Spanish form versions.

Form Metro/MultCo OPT(SP) wizard language corrected

Form Name: Metro Vivienda De Apoyo – Impuestos Personales(SHS) Multnomah County Preescolar Para Todos – Impuestos Personales(PFA)

SPF Form ID: OR102SP

Corrected questions in the wizard for the Spanish version of the Metro/Multnomah County Employee OPT IN/OUT Form. SPF was returning some questions in English instead of in Spanish.

Pennsylvania

LST Exemption Certificates presented to all non-residents

Form Name: Local Services Tax - Exemption Certificate; City Of Pittsburgh 2021 Local Services Tax - Exemption Certificate

SPF Form ID: PA112; PA113

Pennsylvania employees who live in reciprocal states (IN, MD, NJ, OH, VA, or WV) are now presented with either form PA112 or PA113, depending on which is applicable.

Previously, SPF only presented these forms to Pennsylvania non-residents that lived in non-reciprocal states.

Washington, D.C.

Form D-4A DC.nonResident tax parameter description corrected

Form Name: Certificate of Nonresidence in the District of Columbia

SPF Form ID: DC102

The description for the DC.nonResident tax parameter has been corrected to " Is a District of Columbia nonresident.”

Previously, the description was incorrectly listed as “District of Columbia total allowances.”

West Virginia

Form WV/IT-104 typo corrected

Form Name: Employee's Withholding Exemption Certificate

SPF Form ID: WV101

We’ve corrected a typo in the Two Earners Survey section of the form wizard. The options to the question “Do you wish to withhold at a lower rate?” will now read as follows (change in bold):

I wish to have tax withheld at lower rate
No, I do not wish to have tax withheld at a lower rate

Miscellaneous Updates

Federal removed from state dropdowns

Dropdowns allowing a user to select a state (for example, for a state of residence) will no longer show “Federal” as an option.

Date corrected to 2021 in Guided Mode surveys

Corrected the date to 2021 for numerous Guided Mode surveys containing the following options:

“I am exempt from 2021 withholding”
“I am NOT exempt from 2021 withholding and want to complete this form”

Please note that this has not yet been corrected for the New York Resident Survey but will be in an upcoming release.

Invalid postback content-encoding corrected

The postback service was setting an invalid content encoding of UTF-8; the postback does not need to set content encoding, so this has been removed. This was introduced in the 2021-R4a release.

For more information regarding content encoding, please see: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Content-Encoding

HSTS enforced for SPF Hosted

HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) protects site visitors from downgrade attacks and cookie hijacking attacks by instructing the client browser to only interact with the service over HTTPS.

HSTS is now enforced for https://spf.symmetry.com/ - please note that this will only affect users of the SPF Hosted product.

Additional date format supported

Symmetry Payroll Forms now accepts two date formats:

MM/DD/YYYY
YYYY-MM-DD

Beginning with the 2021-R1 release, only YYYY-MM-DD was accepted. We’ve now expanded this to include MM/DD/YYYY in addition to YYYY-MM-DD.

Implement OAuth Client Credentials grant type for Postback

A new grant type, CLIENT_CREDENTIALS, has been added as an option for OAuth2 grant type. This only applies when the authentication type has been set to OAUTH2.

Client Credentials needs the OAuth client ID and OAuth client secret but does not need the target username or password.

To use this new grant type, the following elements must be set in the registration context:

<postback>
   <enabled>true</enabled>
   <requestSettings>
      <targetLocation>https://postback-target-server</targetLocation>
      <targetAuthenticationType>OAUTH2</targetAuthenticationType>
      <targetOauth2GrantType>CLIENT_CREDENTIALS</targetOauth2GrantType>
      <targetOauth2TokenUrl>https://url-to-oauth-token-authentication-server</targetOauth2TokenUrl>
      <targetOauth2ClientId>someClientId</targetOauth2ClientId>
      <targetOauth2ClientSecret>sOm3Cli3NtS3cret</targetOauth2ClientSecret>
   </requestSettings>
</postback>

OAuth2 additional parameters accepted

A new optional targetOauth2AdditionalParameters element has been added to postbackRequestSettings element. It contains zero or more postbackOauth2AdditionalParameter elements.

This will allow users to send in any additional parameters that may be required by their specific authentication tokens.