The Alabama Department of Industrial Relations has informed us that there will be a special assessment of interest on money that was borrowed from the US Treasury to pay unemployment benefits from 2007 through 2010.  These funds were borrowed because there was more paid in unemployment benefits than was collected in unemployment compensation taxes.  Through the funds collected, most of the borrowing has been repaid; however, federal law does not allow any state to pay interest expense with unemployment tax revenue.  Therefore, the state is assessing all active employers 0.07% of their taxable wages for the year 2010 to pay the interest due.

The Alabama Department of Industrial Relations will begin sending Assessment Notices on August 10, 2011.  They will have a due date of September 9, 2011 in order to make the interest payment by September 30, 2011 to the US Treasury.  These payments will have to be made via the EFT application on e-gov.  There will be a separate option to pay this interest on the EFT payment screen. 

JamisonMoneyFarmer PC will be able to assist in processing this for all of our quarterly payroll tax clients.  Please send us the assessment when you receive it and we will begin the transaction.  If you don’t already use JMF to process your quarterly payroll tax returns, we can still assist you.  Please contact us and we will be happy to either process the transaction for you or walk you through the process.