Filing unemployment taxes electronically can help avoid penalties - April 20, 2006

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Media contact: Hilary Young, 360-902-9454

OLYMPIA – Most businesses that were fined last year for improperly filing unemployment-insurance reports could have avoided those penalties by using electronic filing tools, according to the Employment Security Department (ESD).

Nearly 3,000 businesses were charged a penalty in 2005 for not properly submitting unemployment tax and wage reports. Failing to report a Social Security number or hours worked for every employee accounted for nearly 80 percent of all violations. Another 18 percent were charged for failing to use the correct form. 

Penalty amounts ranged from 16 cents to $250, with the average being about $193.

“We offer multiple options for employers to file their reports electronically,” said Annette Copeland, head of ESD’s unemployment-insurance program. “The software highlights errors and missing information.  And by using our online system, there’s no risk of improper formatting.

“Employers could reduce their risk of penalties and speed up the filing process by using the online tools,” she said. 

Users also can reduce their risk of data-entry errors by importing data from various accounting software packages rather than re-keying employee information, said Copeland.

ESD offers free options for electronic filing. UIFastTax is downloaded from the Internet and saves reports to the user’s hard-drive for future reference. UIFastTax is particularly well-suited to accountants because it allows them to report for multiple businesses, according to Copeland.

Another option is UIWebTax, which is an interactive Internet application. Both UIFastTax and UIWebTax allow users to file online.

Regardless of how a business chooses to file required reports, all of them can pay unemployment taxes online with ePay. They enter banking information and the date they want the payment debited from the account. A confirmation is sent via email when payment is received.

Businesses can select their filing method and pay taxes online at www.efile.go2ui.com. All data are submitted over a secure Internet connection.  

Unemployment taxes must be filed and paid on a quarterly basis. Taxes for the first quarter of 2006 are due by April 30.