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How Do I Create Long Term Care in Basic Payroll

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Long Term Care needs to be taken out of employee paychecks starting July 1st 2023 (Does not matter what hours the employee is being paid for).

For more information visit the Employment Security Department website.

Starting July, 2023, Washington State will begin collecting funding for the new Long Term Care Act.  This is administered by the Employment Security Department.  The employee paid premium will be a percentage of wages starting on July 1, 2023.  This Long Term Care deduction is to start on the first July 2023 payroll regardless of when the hours were worked.

The percentage is 0.58%.   Unlike PFML, there is no maximum amount.  

There is no employer contribution, but employers are required to collect premiums through employee payroll deductions and remit proceeds to the Employment Security Department (EDS). This agency will deposit funds in a trust for the individual until they qualify for the benefit.

All qualifying employees are subject to the premium assessment, with the following exceptions: Please see the exemptions page at ESD for more information.

The Long Term Care will be reported with PFLMA at the same time. Since the address for remitting payments is different, setup a new vendor for Long Term Care

**** Employment Security is requiring the birthday for all employee be reported in the quarterly reports for PFML/LTC. Be sure that each employee's birthday is in their employee record. ****

It is recommended to wait to add Long Term Care or change Long Term Care rates for the new year until after the last payroll of June is complete. If the hours are for June but the payroll date is July, Long Term Care needs to be deducted from employee's paychecks.

Go to:  Payroll >Payroll Setup > Deduction Plans tab

Before adding a new Deduction, check to see if the Long Term Care is already there and if it's inactive, make the Long Term Care active again by entering the employee decimal rate of .00580 in the employee Dec % field shown below and make sure the rate is applied into each employee's deductions.

Click the Update Employee List Button.

All the employees in the employee section of the Deduction Plans window will be updated with the new rate. Any employees not in the list should be added by click Add New in the employee list.

To ADD a new Plan (if the plan does not already exist) Click Add Plan.

  1. Enter Plan Number- This is the sequence they appear on the screen. If left blank, the program will add the number automatically
  2. Enter the Type - Other
  3. Plan Name - Long Term Care or Wa State Long Term Care
  4. Double click the Vendor - Click Add New to add a new vendor.

      According to the information we received from ESD, the vendor should be:  

                                     Employment Security Department
                                              WA Cares Fund
                                               PO Box 3537 
                                         Seattle, WA   98124-3537. 
  1. Make sure the Employee: Soc Sec  Medicare FWT  and W2 match what's shown below
  2. Participate: Choose Yes. This is an employee only deduction.  
  3. Under the Employee: fields, enter .0058 for the decimal. This is the deduction for all employees.
  4. Click Add New on the right hand side to add employees to the deduction plan.
  5. Double click employee name field to add an employee to the deduction.
  6. Once all the employees have been added, click the Save button above the employees.
  7. Click the Save button on the Plans side.  

The Long Term Care deduction should be in each employee's Benefits and Deductions section of their employee record. If you've already started a payroll period, please check the payroll benefits for each employee and add the Long Term Care deduction if needed. Be sure to check the deductions next payroll period to make sure the deduction is working as expected.

The Long Term Care deduction will be reported quarterly along with PFMLA in the same file for one upload to the ESD, however being separate vendors, each benefit will create it's own payable to the correct vendor. The file format for uploading to the ESD PFML/LTC will be available in August per ESD. Once we have the format, we will post that information into the PFLM Reports help section.

Next Article How Do I Create Long Term Care in Advanced Payroll
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