From osps-news at listsmart.osl.state.or.us Fri Apr 9 08:41:08 2010 From: osps-news at listsmart.osl.state.or.us (Announcements from OSPS to the users of the Oregon State Payroll Application) Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2010 08:41:08 -0700 Subject: OSPS E-News ~ Furlough Update: VF Extra Vacation Leave Message-ID: <8A8CF693A3BB294DB354A999D49CF81807FE7DFB@exchnode01.ad.state.or.us> VF Vacation Hours - Background In January we communicated about the procedures for tracking vacation in excess of 350 hours earned by management service employees during 2009 when the limit had been increased to 425. This bank of vacation was related to the requirement to take furlough hours. In January it was moved to a secondary vacation bank with an expiration date of 6/30/2013. The hours are logged as "VF" when taken. There is no cash value to these hours and they are not paid out upon termination or for any other reason. Transfer Clarification OSPS was recently asked if the hours move with an employee if they move to another agency. Yes, the hours are transferrable. However, these hours cannot be moved to the clearing screen. During the furlough management project, we allocated programming hours to the tasks that met the highest payroll need. Because the VF vacation bank affects less than 2% of state employees, we chose to not automate VF hours transfer and these are manual transactions. Adjustment Procedure When you need to process a transfer of an employee who holds a bank of VF hours, communication between the sending and receiving agency is key. The sending agency must notify the receiving agency of the hours to be transferred. Then, both will process the necessary adjustments. * The sending agency will notify the receiving agency of the number of hours that follow the employee. The sending agency will then process a transaction in the P435 screen to adjust the VF balance to zero. * The receiving agency will process an adjustment to acquire the VF hours via the P435 screen documenting the transaction with the notification from the sending agency. The hours will remain in the VF vacation bank until taken, expired or transferred to another agency. Oregon Statewide Payroll Services Staff DAS State Controller's Division Phone: (503)378-6777 Fax: (503)378-3518 OSPS Help Desk: mailto:OSPS.Help at das.state.or.us Visit Our Online Resource Center: http://oregon.gov/DAS/SCD/OSPS -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From osps-news at listsmart.osl.state.or.us Fri Apr 9 16:27:51 2010 From: osps-news at listsmart.osl.state.or.us (Announcements from OSPS to the users of the Oregon State Payroll Application) Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2010 16:27:51 -0700 Subject: OSPS E-News ~ Federal HIRE Legislation Message-ID: <4875EF345085BE48B9C4B7CA341EFB680114CE03@exchnode01.ad.state.or.us> Hello Everyone: Some of you may have heard about the new federal HIRE Act that provides for a FICA "tax holiday" on the wages of a new employee who had been unemployed for the six months previous to being hired. State and local governments are not eligible for this program. We are forwarding on a news release from the IRS and have highlighted the key phrase near the bottom of the information. We hope this will answer any questions you might have about this opportunity. If you are interested is subscribing to this IRS News Essentials newsletter, there is a link at the bottom. Have a great weekend! IRS.gov Banner IRS Newswire April 7, 2010 News Essentials What's Hot News Releases IRS - The Basics IRS Guidance Media Contacts Facts & Figures Problem Alerts Around The Nation e-News Subscriptions ________________________________ The Newsroom Topics Electronic IRS Press Kit Tax Tips 2009 Radio PSAs Fact Sheets Armed Forces Disaster Relief Scams / Consumer Alerts Tax Shelters More Topics.. ________________________________ IRS Resources Compliance & Enforcement Contact My Local Office e-file Forms & Pubs Frequently Asked Questions News Taxpayer Advocacy Where to File ________________________________ Issue Number: IR-2010-043 Inside This Issue ________________________________ Special Payroll Tax Exemption Form Now Available WASHINGTON - The Internal Revenue Service today released a new form that will help employers claim the special payroll tax exemption that applies to many newly-hired workers during 2010, created by the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act signed by President Obama on March 18. New Form W-11 , Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act Employee Affidavit, is now posted on IRS.gov, along with answers to frequently-asked questions about the payroll tax exemption and the related new hire retention credit. The new law requires that employers get a statement from each eligible new hire, certifying under penalties of perjury, that he or she was unemployed during the 60 days before beginning work or, alternatively, worked fewer than a total of 40 hours for anyone during the 60-day period. Employers can use Form W-11 to meet this requirement. Most eligible employers then use Form 941, Employer's Quarterly Federal Tax Return, to claim the payroll tax exemption for eligible new hires. This form, revised for use beginning with the second calendar quarter of 2010, is currently posted as a draft form on IRS.gov and will be released next month as a final along with the form's instructions. Though employers need this certification to claim both the payroll tax exemption and the new hire retention credit, they do not file these statements with the IRS. Instead, they must retain them along with other payroll and income tax records. The HIRE Act created two new tax benefits designed to encourage employers to hire and retain new workers. As a result, employers who hire unemployed workers this year (after Feb. 3, 2010, and before Jan. 1, 2011) may qualify for a 6.2-percent payroll tax incentive, in effect exempting them from the employer's share of social security tax on wages paid to these workers after March 18. This reduction will have no effect on the employee's future Social Security benefits, and employers would still need to withhold the employee's 6.2-percent share of Social Security taxes, as well as income taxes. In addition, for each unemployed worker retained for at least a year, businesses may claim a new hire retention credit of up to $1,000 per worker when they file their 2011 income tax returns. These two tax benefits are especially helpful to employers who are adding positions to their payrolls. New hires filling existing positions also qualify but only if the workers they are replacing left voluntarily or for cause. Family members and other relatives do not qualify for either of these tax incentives. Businesses, agricultural employers, tax-exempt organizations, tribal governments and public colleges and universities all qualify to claim the payroll tax exemption for eligible newly-hired employees. Household employers and federal, state and local government employers, other than public colleges and universities, are not eligible. IRS.gov has more details. Related Item: IR-2010-33 , Two New Tax Benefits Aid Employers Who Hire and Retain Unemployed Workers Back to Top ________________________________ Thank you for subscribing to the IRS Newswire, an IRS e-mail service. If you know someone who might want to subscribe to this mailing list, please forward this message to them so they can subscribe . This message was distributed automatically from the mailing list IRS Newswire. Please Do Not Reply To This Message. ________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From osps-news at listsmart.osl.state.or.us Tue Apr 6 13:25:19 2010 From: osps-news at listsmart.osl.state.or.us (Announcements from OSPS to the users of the Oregon State Payroll Application) Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2010 13:25:19 -0700 Subject: OSPS E-News ~ OSPS Closed Friday April 16 Message-ID: <8A8CF693A3BB294DB354A999D49CF81807FE7DE5@exchnode01.ad.state.or.us> OSPS Closed on Friday, April 16 Due to state budget reductions, the Department of Administrative Services will be closed on Friday, April 16, 2010. DAS offices will re-open on Monday, April 19. Thank you for your patience. Oregon Statewide Payroll Services Staff DAS State Controller's Division Phone: (503)378-6777 Fax: (503)378-3518 OSPS Help Desk: mailto:OSPS.Help at das.state.or.us Visit Our Online Resource Center: http://oregon.gov/DAS/SCD/OSPS -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From osps-news at listsmart.osl.state.or.us Tue Apr 13 07:58:58 2010 From: osps-news at listsmart.osl.state.or.us (Announcements from OSPS to the users of the Oregon State Payroll Application) Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2010 07:58:58 -0700 Subject: OSPS E-News ~ Payroll Datamart Security Project Message-ID: <4875EF345085BE48B9C4B7CA341EFB680114CE2C@exchnode01.ad.state.or.us> ________________________________ From: WALLACE Aaron * SCD SARS Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2010 7:35 AM To: datamart-news at listsmart.osl.state.or.us Subject: OSPS Security Project This is to announce the completion of a project intended to establish an additional layer of controls over the access of payroll data through the payroll tables in the Datamart. This project introduces new data view controls based on user approved access for a specific agency or group of agencies. The controls are intended to ensure a straight line from the access levels approved for the user to the actual views granted. A project team consisting of SARS, OSPS and technical support from DAS Operations' Information Systems and Service section have completed a project that included planning, research, programming and testing and will implement the new controls effective April 22, 2010. The project team has configured access for each current payroll Datamart approved user based on the user's specific agency and/or known agency groups. After implementation, all new requests for Datamart access will have to specify (a) accounting data only, (b) payroll data only or (c) accounting AND payroll data and specify if access to a group of agencies is needed. Otherwise, access will be granted for the home agency only. We believe that we have accurately captured all of the known agency groups and appropriate access levels. These changes should be seamless to users. However, if you find that you are in need of additional access that wasn't considered when the new controls were implemented, please report this to your manager. Agency management can work with agency security officers to grant additional access or to request that SARS configure additional agency groups. The security over Information Systems is addressed in: * ORS 182.122 Information Systems Security * Oregon Accounting Manual Chapter 10 Internal Control - 10.70.00 Security Access to Financial Systems I would like to thank all the staff who participated in this project; we believe it will be a great success. Thanks, Aaron Wallace Sr. Datamart Business Analyst DAS-State Controller's Division -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From osps-news at listsmart.osl.state.or.us Wed Apr 28 10:45:51 2010 From: osps-news at listsmart.osl.state.or.us (Announcements from OSPS to the users of the Oregon State Payroll Application) Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 10:45:51 -0700 Subject: OSPS E-News ~ OSPA Payroll Registers Class Enrollment Deadline Message-ID: <8A8CF693A3BB294DB354A999D49CF81807C3358D@exchnode01.ad.state.or.us> If you are planning to participate in the OSPA Payroll Registers class on May 4 from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm, please register before midnight on April 30 in iLearnOregon: http://go.usa.gov/iE6 This will be a live session through iLincOregon. I will send registrants for the class a link to the web site on May 3. Participants will need earphones or a headset attached to their computers for audio. You can participate in the class through the chat function or with a microphone. I'll transfer a PDF file of register examples to participants when class starts. If you want to try using a headset, this HRSD web site has the technical requirements and suggestions for headsets: http://www.oregon.gov/DAS/HR/virtualclass.shtml If you have questions, please contact Katherine Bremser (Katherine.Bremser at state.or.us or 503-378-6777, x295). Katherine Bremser Training Coordinator Oregon Statewide Payroll Services State Controller's Division Department of Administrative Services 503-378-6777 ext. 295 Online Resource Center: http://oregon.gov/DAS/SCD/OSPS/ Data Classification: Level 1 - Published How are we doing? Please complete our customer service survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SCD_Feedback Your opinion matters Thank You!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From osps-news at listsmart.osl.state.or.us Fri Apr 30 08:48:48 2010 From: osps-news at listsmart.osl.state.or.us (Announcements from OSPS to the users of the Oregon State Payroll Application) Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 08:48:48 -0700 Subject: OSPS E-News ~ May Training News is Now Available Message-ID: <8A8CF693A3BB294DB354A999D49CF81807C3359D@exchnode01.ad.state.or.us> The May 2010 Training News is now in the OSPS On-line Resources: http://go.usa.gov/iCW Besides May training and next forum dates, topics include an OSPA Datamart update and definitions for current and closed pay periods. If you have suggestions for topics for the Training News or upcoming OSPS Forums, please send an e-mail to Katherine.Bremser at state.or.us. Enjoy! Katherine Bremser Training Coordinator Oregon Statewide Payroll Services State Controller's Division Department of Administrative Services? 503-378-6777 ext. 295? Online Resource Center: http://oregon.gov/DAS/SCD/OSPS/