State Income Tax Project

Frequently Asked Questions

What if my work location is not in Washington?

WSU employees who work at worksites outside of Washington can find information and resources about telework agreements, tax withholdings, and benefit and insurance impacts here.

What if I’ve been having additional federal taxes withheld as a way to ‘save’ to pay my estimated state taxes?

If you were electing to have additional federal tax withheld as a way to ‘save’ the estimated amount of your state taxes, you may want to review your W4 and adjust as necessary. The IRS has a Tax Withholding Estimator that may be helpful for this.

What will change?

If you’ve been estimating the amount of tax to withhold, your paycheck amount may change slightly once automatic withholding begins with the January 10 2022 paycheck. The IRS has a Tax Withholding Estimator that may be helpful for this.

Who is ADP and what are they doing for us?

Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP) provided expertise and software that integrates with Workday to help WSU properly report on state taxes withheld for all employees regardless of their location.

Why didn’t WSU withhold state taxes for all employees before now?

In legacy WSU systems, it wasn’t feasible to withhold state taxes for all the employees who live outside Washington. Payroll Services provided this service only to employees who lived in states where WSU had established presence.

Why can’t Workday do this?

Logistically, Workday can automatically withhold state taxes. However, withholding and remitting state taxes requires expertise on tax requirements for each state. It would also require Payroll Services to perform manual monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting and remittances. Choosing an expert third party to perform this service for WSU was more cost-effective and provides a higher level of accuracy and compliance.

We built an integration between Workday and ADP’s software so that you can see this tax withholding in Workday.