Changes to come in federal tax withholding from employee paychecks

Changes recently made to the federal tax code for 2018 will be seen immediately in most Americans' paychecks. To explain to Johns Hopkins employees how the adjustments will be reflected in theirs, the following letter was emailed to faculty and staff on Feb. 2 by Heidi Conway, JHU vice president for human resources, and Inez Stewart, JHM senior vice president of human resources.

Dear Colleagues:

We are writing to you to make you aware of recent updates to our payroll system. As a result of changes made to the federal tax law in December 2017, employers are required to implement new federal income tax withholding tables. These changes will affect the amount of federal tax that is withheld from your paycheck. In most cases, employees will have less federal tax withheld per paycheck. The changes will appear over two pays as follows:

• Your next paycheck will reflect a change in the amount being withheld retroactive to the first of the year. This is a one-time adjustment to the federal income tax withheld covering multiple pays since the beginning of the year.
• The paycheck after that will reflect the new amount of withholding that should remain consistent for the rest of 2018 if you take no action.

The amount withheld from each paycheck is based on your salary and the number of exemptions you requested. Your current exemption information is detailed on your pay statements. Employees are encouraged to review their pay data on a regular basis and change their exemptions if needed at any time using Employee Self Service (ESS).

In addition to changes in federal withholdings, the new law makes a number of changes affecting next year's income tax filing. These changes include increases in the standard deduction and repeal of personal exemptions. Because of these changes, we encourage employees to review the information on the IRS website and/or seek advice from a tax professional.

For questions related to the new tax changes, you can visit the IRS website.

For questions regarding your paycheck, please call HR/Payroll Shared Services at 443-997-5828.