How to Correct Payroll Tax Liabilities in QuickBooks
Published 04/14/2012 | 
When you pay payroll liabilities with a regular check, your reports are usually correct so you don’t want to affect accounts with the adjustment. You just want to remove the liabilities you paid incorrectly. Make sure to pay your payroll liabilities through Employees > Payroll Taxes & Liabilities > Pay Scheduled Liabilities in the future.
This article is provided for informational purposes and is not intended to be construed as legal, accounting, or other professional advice. For further information, please consult appropriate professional advice from your attorney and certified public accountant.
Written by +Ruth Perryman, CMA, CFE, CFM, MBA
Ruth is the president of The QB Specialists, an Intuit Premier Reseller that offers huge savings and expert advice on QuickBooks POS and QuickBooks Enterprise. She is an Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor and a member of Intuit’s Trainer/Writer Network. She is also certified in QuickBooks POS and QuickBooks Enterprise and has provided expert QuickBooks help to thousands of businesses all over the world since 1996.
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We use 2013 QB Pro-the quarterly FL UC tax liability payable shows an amount different from the correct one each quarter and we don’t know why?
Hi Bob,
Unfortunately, there are all sorts of reasons your tax liability payable is incorrect. I’d start by double-clicking on the amount on the balance sheet and review the detailed report to see what’s increasing and decreasing the payable amount.
Hi Ruth,
We have a credit balance that has been carried over and over in our Tax liability report. for that reason, we have experience many trouble while trying to balance our book and even in bank reconciliation process. Would you please shoe me how to resolve our problem. Thank you very much!
Hi Katie,
You can adjust your payroll liabilities in Employees > Payroll Taxes and Liabilities > Adjust Payroll Liabilities. But if you’re having trouble reconciling your bank accounts this is just one symptom of a bigger problem.
First, you need to figure out why you can’t reconcile and fix the errors. It probably has nothing to do with the credit balance, unless the credit balance was created by entering an incorrect payment amount.
Once you reconcile all your accounts you can safely adjust your payroll liabilities.
Ruth
Please help, my payroll liabilities show overdue payments for each quarter of 2012…for Tx-unemployment tax…which is figured by a % that was input in error quite awhile back…this tax was also paid online by electronic draft and posted to the register after the fact…the amounts of the “overdue” liability payments are wrong (way over what was owed and paid). So I can’t just void or delete the previous transactions on the check register and re-do the transaction thru the payroll liabilities some how I need to lower the amount due of the liability…I have corrected the % for 2013 un-employment tax due so future payments should be correct.
Hi Sharon,
You can’t fix this by adjusting your liabilities. It also affects your tax forms. I’d call QuickBooks payroll support for help.
Ruth
We have a not for profit it organization which is tax exempt from FUTA and SUTA. However when setting up one employee I forgot to check the exemt box under FUI. On the paycheck the paycheck is correct for the employee how ever on the employer side it shows like $3.00 that we owe to FUTA. When I go to payroll liabilities I see the $3.00 which is due but technically we do not owe them. I am not sure how to remove this from the payroll liabilities?
Thank You
Hi Phillip,
You can’t fix this by adjusting your liabilities. It also affects your tax forms. I’d call QuickBooks payroll support for help.
Ruth
Hi Ruth, I want to make sure we are talking about the same thing before I proceed.
In my payroll liabilities there are amounts in red from previous quarters where the Payroll Liabilities and the amount that quickbooks says to pay doesn’t jive (or the amount my accountant calculates is different). This has left me with small balances that I can’t get rid of.
Our P/L etc. are all correct, what should I do to clear out these balances?
Hi Anthony,
Go to Employees > Payroll Liabilities & Taxes > Adjust Payroll Liabilities. If your P&L and Balance Sheet are correct, select the Accounts Affected button and check the box next to “Do not affect accounts”.
Ruth
Hi Ruth,
I have a question about payroll liability payments made in my quickbooks. I VOID my liabiltiy payment for $3,228.32 and forgot to cancel the schedule payment for that amount.
Now I have 2 liabilities payment that was deducted to my bank which was the one that I VOIDED in my quickbooks and the Updated one.
If you can help me with this question I would really appreciate that.
Sincerely,
Mesha
Hi Mesha,
Unfortunately, voiding a payroll liability payment in QuickBooks only affects QuickBooks. If you’re going to apply the overpayment to a future tax liability, you should re-enter the voided liability check. This will create a negative balance which will reduce your future tax liability.
Ruth
Hi there,
We have three payroll liability checks that we voided in QuickBooks as they were in error. The correct checks have since gone out, but these three payroll liability checks now show as overdue. Is there any way to remove these from the payroll liabilities due list?
Thanks,
Kathryn
Hi Kathryn,
The replacement checks should’ve been issued as payroll liability checks as well (Employees > Payroll Taxes & Liabilities > Pay Scheduled Liabilities).
If regular checks were issued, you can adjust your payroll liabilities (Employees > Payroll Taxes & Liabilities > Adjust Payroll Liabilities). If you used the correct account on the check and you don’t want to affect your accounts, make sure to select the Accounts Affected button and change it to “Do not affect accounts”.
Ruth
I entered the wrong amount for the company Social Security on my payroll liability check. I tried to correct by going to EMPLOYEE>PAY PAYROLL LIABILITIES, and the amount have been moved over when I created the check. I also went to the actual payroll liability check and tried to change the company Social Security to the correct amount, and this will not work.
Please give me some advise on how to correct my problem. Thanks, Brian
Hi Brian,
Either void or delete the liability check and then re-enter it. Open the check and then go to the Edit drop-down menu to find both options.
Ruth