Simplify Your Withholding!

As an employer in the City of Mason,you are required to withhold municipalincome taxes for the City of Mason fromyour employees’ pay checks. For mostemployers, the withholding must besubmitted to the City of Mason throughthe ACH Credit Electronic FilingProgram.*

Register for the ACH Credit ElectronicFiling Program by completing andreturning the ACH Credit AuthorizationForm to the City of Mason Tax Office.The form is available by calling the TaxOffice at 513-229-8555 or visiting

www.imagginemason.orgg

Electronic routing information will bemailed to you once your registrationform has been received.

Benefits to You

• The ACH Credit Program is availableto you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• Your payments are processed conve-niently and accurately via electronicfunds transfer.

• After you have registered for our pro-gram, no monthly or quarterly mail-ings are required.

*This is an electronic payment program thatallows employers to send withholding tax pay-ments to the City of Mason through banking’sAutomated Clearing House (ACH) system. Thisis the same process used for payroll directdeposit. Contact your bank for informationabout sending an ACH payment.

Using theACH Credit Electronic

Filing Programfor Employer

Tax Filing

City of Mason

TTaaxx OOffffiiccee6000 Mason-Montgomery Road

Mason, OH 45040

513-229-8535

Hours:Monday - Friday

8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

www.imaginemason.org

REQUIREMENTS FOR CITY OFMASON WITHHOLDING TAX

• All withholding must be paid on a monthlybasis. The Tax Commissioner may authorizequarterly payments if the monthly paymentsaverage less than $300 per month.

• Each employer or his agent must pay the taxwithheld on or before the fifteenth date ofeach month following the reporting period.

• Payments of taxes withheld must bedeposited electronically, unless the TaxCommissioner gives exemption from thisrequirement.

• On or before February 28 of each year, eachemployer or his agent must submit areconciliation (Form W-33, available atwww.imaginemason.org) for the previousyear along with copies of the employees’Forms W-2 or equivalent. An acceptableequivalent will include the required informa-tion, including name, address, and socialsecurity numbers of all employees and theamounts in Boxes 5, 18, and 19. We prefer toreceive this information in alphabeticalorder, either in printed form or electronically(see electronic standards below).

• The City of Mason will accept 3-1/2"diskettes in lieu of paper W-2s. The diskettespecifications must conform to the SocialSecurity Administration's Magnetic MediaReporting format. Standard diskettes mustbe 3-1/2", either double-sided/double densityor double-sided/high density, and must beMS-DOS compatible. Virus scan the diskettebefore submission. Be sure to label the out-side of each diskette with:1. Company Name2. Federal ID Number3. City Account Number4. Tax Reporting Year5. For multiple diskettes, indicate the proper

sequence (i.e. Disk 2 of 3, etc.)

• An employer is required to withhold only on“qualifying wages” as defined in InternalRevenue code section 3121(a), generally theMedicare wage in box 5 of the Form W-2.Qualifying wages include:1. Medicare Exempt Employees are subject

to the requirements for “qualifying wages”in box 5 of the Form W-2 even thoughthat box will remain blank.

2. 401(k), 457, & SupplementalUnemployment Compensation Benefitsshould be included in Box 5 and are sub-ject to withholding requirements.

3. Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Planincome is included in the definition of“qualifying wages” at the time the incomeis deferred and is subject to withholdingrequirements.

4. Stock Option income is included in thedefinition of “qualifying wages” and issubject to withholding requirements.

5. Disqualifying Disposition of an IncentiveStock Option income is not required forwithholding, but it is considered “qualify-ing wages” and the recipient is liable forthe tax.

6. Cafeteria Plans (IRC Section 125) are notincluded in the definition of Medicarewages.

ACH ADDENDUM SPECIFICATIONS

Each ACH record has a user-defined field at theend called the addendum. For City of Masonwithholding transmissions, the addendum musthave the following format. See the sample below.

Position Content. Enter this information:1-4 TXP*5-13 Your federal ID number. Do not use

punctuation or separators.14-18 *011*19-24 The date your tax-rreporting period

ends, as yymmdd. For example, if youwere are a monthly payer, the end ofthe tax period for the third monthwould be March 31, 2005. The entryfor this field would then be 050331.

25-27 *T*28-37 The amount of tax you are paying, as a

10 digit number, right justified, leftzero filled, with both dollars and cents,and no decimal point. If there is nowithholding for the period, then thefield would be ten zeros. For example,if you transmit 0000000829 then yourwithholding tax paid is $8.29.

38-41 *ZZ*42-51 The amount of qualifying wages for

the tax-rreporting period as a 10 digitnumber, right justified, left zero filled,with both dollars and cents and nodecimal point. If there are no qualify-ing wages for the period, then the fieldwould contain ten zeros.

52-54 ***55-60 Your City of Mason account number. It

is 5 digits and the letter W. Do not usea dash.

61 \ (back slash)

Sample ACH Addendum for City of Mason Withholding----+----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----+----5----+----6-TXP*#########*011*YYMMDD*T*$$$$$$$$cc*ZZ*$$$$$$$$cc***#####W\

Your Federal ID number

Date of End of Tax Period

Amount of Tax Being Paid

Qualifying Wages for the Period Being Reported

Your City of Mason account number

(green denotes unchangeable characters)

(Position)(Content)