Overview and Background
In 2024, through the Workday application, The Texas A&M University System was made aware of new payroll taxes to be assessed on employees working in other states. The first tax / assessment was for the state of Vermont, but recently, notifications have been received from Colorado and Oregon. Massachusetts also has an employer tax, but it has not yet been activated for the A&M System because the minimum employee threshold has not been met.
Employer Contribution
The new taxes are levied on both the employee and the employer. This is different from the state income tax, which Workday has handled since its implementation. State income tax is a withholding levy on employees, deducted from their gross earnings.
Creation of New OEEC Benefit Type and Object Code 1986
The A&M System uses the term “benefits” or “employer contribution” to describe additional charges paid by the employer for the benefit of the employee.
Since these new taxes / assessments are levied on the employer, the code “OEEC” (Other Employer and Employee Charges) was created. These charges must be expensed in the financial system; therefore, an additional A&M System expense object code (1986) was created.
FAMIS Accounting Analysis Table Impact
FAMIS depends on the accounting analysis table to direct employer-funded benefits to the proper funding source. See the Accounting Analysis and Payroll Charge Codes white paper for a description of that process.
Since the OEEC was a new employer charge, a new entry in the table would have been ideal. However, changing this table is a complex and involved process. The A&M System team decided to leverage an existing, though rarely used, table entry.
The Federal Insurance Regular (FIR) employer benefit was created for the AgriLife Extension as an employer contribution for employees with federal civil service appointments. Only a few of these employees remain active and employed by the A&M System. Since the FIR benefit was never utilized outside of these few AgriLife Extension employees, the decision was made to have OEEC and FIR use the same accounting analysis table entries.
System Member Requirement
The merging of FIR / OEEC entries in the accounting analysis table now means that A&M System members can no longer specify zero on the accounting analysis table for FIR / OEEC. A valid charge code must now be specified.
Note that if an employee receiving Federal Insurance has FIR charges allocated to any other A&M System member, other than AgriLife Extension, the charge code will be changed to zero for those entries, and the amount will not be charged through Workday to the FAMIS payroll integration.
Equity Transfers
Employees who are subject to these new taxes / assessments can be jointly funded. Therefore, OEEC charges may result in equity transfer requirements. The A&M System member employing the person is responsible for paying these taxes. This is true regardless of the employee’s costing allocations and is comparable to the payment of Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) taxes (Social Security and Medicare).
The FAMIS integration process has been modified to include OEEC in the equity transfer process.
Example Accounting Analysis Table
