What do I do with the Wage and Benefit Audit form I received?

States use a Wage and Benefit audit for many purposes. The state may be checking on taxpayer subsidized benefits that the worker is receiving such as Medicaid for a dependent child, or on the veracity of information the employee has previously provided for purposes of child support enforcement, wage garnishment for tax delinquencies, etc. The state will never tell you exactly what they are trying to verify but the information they are seeking follows a pattern.

The state is not auditing your records. Rather, they are auditing claimants to see if they reported all work and earnings correctly.

1. Wage and Income Verification:

Wage audits will often seek to verify the wage paid to the nanny or caregiver over a period of time. It can take the form of asking about hourly and weekly earnings or it may be asking for a report of wages paid between specific dates of nanny employment.

To the extent possible we complete these wage audit forms for you. For Complete Payroll clients, we will produce the wage payment history and return to the state on your behalf. Essential Payroll clients are responsible for this recordkeeping themselves. However, there may be some questions we need your help with. We don’t know the worker’s schedule, for example, and this information has to come from you.

2. Benefit Audit – Health Insurance:

A common request is for the employer to certify whether they provide health insurance as a benefit to the employee. They will ask whether it is employee only or employee and family, whether the employee has enrolled in this benefit, and lastly the premium amount that the employee is responsible for. HWS almost always needs to forward these questions for your completion.

You must respond to the Wage and Benefit audit as requested to avoid penalties to you, the employer. You are legally responsible to comply with these requests when you have a nanny in employment.