HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 9712 HFS RELEASE

1099 Processing Changes Include:

Support for printing 1099's on cut sheet forms (typically used with laser printers).

Support payer phone, and longer payer name. In accordance with the IRS requiring a point-of-contact phone number, the ability to specify a PEID from which to gather all the payer information - including a phone number - now exists. Also, when using the PEID method, if the payer name exceeds 30 characters, the remaining 20 characters are wrapped around to orm a continuation of the payer name, thus allowing the full 50 characters to be printed.

The IRS moved Excess Golden Parachute Payments from residing in box seven (on top of non-employee compensation), to its own box, number 13, at the bottom right corner of the form. IFAS 1099 forms have been modified to reflect this change. Please note that the relate code used for flagging these payments has remained the same - Associated Code (2) in the 'CK99' 'RELATE03' common code.

When using the '1099SOLE' P/E association assignment, two recipient names can be specified on the 1099 form by creating two '1099SOLE' entries, labeling the first with the number '1' in its associated value field, and labeling the second number '2'. W2 Processing:

There have been no changes made to the W2 processing for 1998. W2 Description files:

There has been no change to the layout of the paper W2 for 1998. Users can expect to use the same paper portion of last year's W2 description file with no changes.

The W2 documentation has been expanded to include detailed explanation for setting up description files and common codes. W2 Tax Calculation Formula Changes:

There were no reported state, or federal tax calculation changes. W4 Report:

A new report has been included which prints employee W4 information. Detailed documentation is included, with an example, for setting up the report. 1998 State Tax Tables:

This release contains updated 1998 tax tables for the following States:

California - Maine - Nebraska - New Mexico - South Carolina

Several other States have alluded that they will be changing their withholding tables also. These include:

Oregon - Connecticut - Kansas - Arkansas - Iowa - Maryland

If you have already received values for these, or any other omitted State, please contact BI-TECH at your earliest convenience. If, and when, BI-TECH receives these new values, a follow up communication will be sent out identifying the new values, with detailed instructions for how to update the tables.