The Internal Revenue Service has issued a new Federal Form W-4 for use effective Jan. 1, 2020. On the new form, all allowances (including self and dependents) have been removed from the Federal tax withholding tables. The previous version of Form W-4 calculated a taxpayers income tax withholding using a withholding allowance based on the personal exemption amount. The new 2020 Federal Form W-4 implements the 2017 changes made by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which suspended personal exemptions and consequently caused some taxpayers to have over-or under-withholding. Employees previously electing allowances will automatically see their 2020 withholding solely based on their filing status.

There are four major changes for 2020:

1. All allowances (including self and dependents) have been removed from the Federal tax withholding tables.
2. Introduces a new section on the first page for accounting for multiple jobs and a working spouse.
3. W-4 will now be called Employee Withholding Certificate.
4. Federal taxes will be based on your Filing Status. Choices are:
   1. Single or Married Filing Separately
   2. Married filing jointly or Qualifying Widow(er)
   3. Head of household (Check only if youre unmarried and pay more than half the costs of keeping up a home for yourself and a qualifying individual.)

Tax withholding tables will change for 2020. Taxpayers can use the Federal Tax Withholding Estimator, at https://www.irs.gov/individuals/tax-withholding-estimator, to help identify estimated tax owed for 2020.However, this calculator will not be updated with the new 2020 tax tables until sometime in January 2020.

Employees are not required to complete a new 2020 Form W-4 withholding form. If you wish to make changes to your federal withholdings, please complete a new 2020 W-4 Employees Withholding Certificate, which can be found at https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf, and send to Human Resources, MS3150.

As more information becomes available from the Internal Revenue Service, Human Resources will share that information.

For more information, contact Human Resources at (573) 651-2206.