CALIFORNIA – STATE DISABILITY INSURANCE RATE FOR 2025
California has set the State Disability Insurance (SDI) withholding rate for 2025 at 1.20%. This withholding rate is the same for all employers for the period of January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2025. Just a reminder that Senate Bill 951 (effective January 1, 2024) removed the taxable wage base limit and maximum withholdings for each employee subject to SDI contributions. For more information, please visit https://edd.ca.gov/en/payroll_taxes/ .
COLORADO – INVESTIGATIONS & CRIMINAL ENFORCEMENT UNIT REQUESTS
We live in an era where it is important to question the validity of documents that we receive. Colorado may send employers written requests for employment documents from the Divisions Investigations & Criminal Enforcement Unit (ICE). These requests are valid, time sensitive, and a response is required. This ICE unit differs from Immigration and was formed to combat fraud, waste, and abuse in the unemployment program by way of detecting, investigating, and prosecuting individuals who commit UI Fraud.
COLORADO – NEW PROCESS FOR EMPLOYER APPEALS TO FAMLI DECISIONS
Colorado has upgraded their process for employers who disagree with a decision from the Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) program and wish to file an appeal.
1. Employers first need to “file a grievance”. This process will be renamed after January 1, 2025, to “request a reconsideration”.
2. Employers can fill out this online form or follow the instructions on the decision.
3. If the employer still disagrees with the new decision, that is when they can file an appeal.
4. Employers need an account in the My FAMLI+ system to file, manage and track appeals.
5. The new upgrade will also allow legal representatives and other interested parties to create an account to manage appeals even if they do not have an existing claimant or employer account.
Any appeal that was filed before December 5 will not be transferred into the My FAMLI+ system. If you have an active case, please continue to use [email protected] to communicate and share documents.
MAINE– PAID FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE PROGRAM SET TO BEGIN 1/1/2025
Starting January 1st, 2025, the Paid Leave Contributions Portal will open and any employer with at least one Maine-based employee must begin payroll withholdings for their employees. Employers with 15 or more employees will contribute 1 percent of wages and may deduct up to half of the contribution from the employees’ wages. Employers with less than 15 employees will contribute 0.5 percent of wages and may deduct the entire amount from the employees’ wages.
Employers will begin their first quarterly wage reporting and premium payments starting April 1st and due by April 30th, 2025.
For more information on the Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave program please visit https://www.maine.gov/paidleave/.
NORTH DAKOTA – 2025 TAX RATES AND TAXABLE WAGE BASE ANNOUNCED
North Dakota’s 2025 contribution rates have been published and will range from 0.08% to 1.14% for positive-balanced employers and 6.09 to 9.69% for those employers with a negative balance, a slightly more favorable range as compared to 2024 rates ranging from 0.08% to 9.98%. This slight movement in the rate tables creates an average 1.7% decrease in per employee tax costs across all tax brackets. However, the decrease is negated by a 3.0% increase in the taxable wage base, creating an overall average tax increase for 2025 of just a little over 1.2%.
The taxable wage base increases from $43,800 in 2024 to $45,100 in 2025 (a 3.0% year-over-year increase).
NEW HIRE REPORTING REMINDER
Federal law requires employers to report all new and rehired employees with 20 days of the first day of work to the state in which the employee works. This information is stored in the National New Hire database and is used for a variety of reasons such as Child Support enforcement and Unemployment Fraud detection. Some states require reporting sooner (AL & ME must be reported within 7 days, GA & VT must be reported within 10 days, MA, RI, & WV must be reported within 14 days, and IA & MS must be reported within 15 days).
The federal regulations state that these 7 data elements must be collected and reported:
• Employee’s name
• Employee’s address
• Employee’s SSN
• Date of hire
• Employer’s name
• Employer’s address
• Employer’s FEIN
Some states may require additional information and the information that is needed can be found here.
Employers can opt to report new hires in each state where they have employment or can register as a multi-state employer and consolidate their reporting with one state.
