November 13, 2025

Don’t forget to register for our Year Start training taking place next Wednesday, November 19th. We’ll cover everything your team should know for a smooth Year Start. Sign up here.

This week, the Department of Labor announced that California employers will be subject to a 1.2% Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA) credit reduction for the 2025 tax year.

FUTA is a 6% tax on wages, up to the first $7,000 per employee annually. In general, employers receive a credit of 5.4% when they file their annual 940 return, resulting in a net tax rate of 0.6%.

However, states that have an outstanding loan balance with the Federal Unemployment Trust Fund may be subject to a “credit reduction”, which is announced in November of every year, and results in employers paying a higher FUTA rate for wages subject to that state’s unemployment insurance.

As a result, California employers should expect to see a FUTA variance collection in Q4 for this credit reduction.

For more information, refer to our FUTA tax guide.

Beginning January 1st, 2026, catch-up contributions to 401k, 403b, and 457 plans will be required to be made as Roth contributions if the employee earned more than $145K in FICA taxable wages in 2025.

The implementation of this requirement in Check is expected to be completed in early December. We have published a guide to our Help Center that explains how it will work, to allow partners to begin planning their integration with this requirement.

Today, we released new functionality in Console to make it easier to see bank account details. You can now view the routing number for both company and employee bank accounts directly in Console.

We’ve added a new delivery option, print_mail_to_employer, which allows all printed W-2s and 1099s to be mailed directly to the employer’s address rather than to each worker individually. This provides greater flexibility for employers who prefer to distribute tax forms themselves.

This setting is managed through the employee_w2_delivery_method and contractor_1099_delivery_method fields in the Company endpoint and can now also be viewed and updated directly in Console, making it easier to review or adjust a company’s tax form delivery preferences.