Recently, many Michigan employers received a letter like this one (http://www.michigan.gov/documents/uia/ArwoodLetter2012TaxRates_373171_7.pdf) explaining that the computed unemployment rates for Michigan were delayed by some new legislation and would be out soon. One of the other things in the letter states that “Taxable wage base will now be shown as $9,500.00″. In 2011 and for a few years before, the wage base was $9,000 so now you’l be paying unemployment tax on an additional $500 in wages per employee that is paid $9,500.00 in 2012. That extra tax will increase your unemployment tax bill by 5.555%.
That’s unfortunate but as you can see in the list here (http://www.americanpayroll.org/members/stateui/state-ui-2/), Michigan is still on the lower side of the states for taxable wage base. In fact, the average state or territory would have a taxable wage base of $16,165.00 up $580 from 2010. According to the state, we’ll keep the higher taxable wage base until we’ve built up a surplus in the unemployment fund.
