January 19, 2021

STD. 686 Employee Action Request (EAR) and STD. 457 California State University (CSU) Student Payroll Action Request (SPAR)

Action Required by Department: Share the following information with all departmental human resources office employees. 

Description: The State Controller's Office (SCO) revised the STD. 686 (EAR) and STD. 457 (SPAR) forms and implemented new Employment History (EH) data fields on the EAR screen in the Uniform State Payroll System effective December 1, 2020. These changes were in response to the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, resulting in an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) redesign of the 2020 W-4 Employee’s Withholding Certificate.   

As a reminder the most significant change was eliminating withholding allowances for federal tax withholding as shared with the release of Personnel Letter #20-028.  Please consider the helpful tips below while processing EAR/SPAR forms:  

• Please verify the EAR/SPAR forms entered into EH after December 1, 2020 with pay history to ensure that the forms are entered correctly for accurate federal withholding.  
• Refrain from keying numerical federal allowances in the dependent field.  Instead of numerical allowances this field requires whole dollar amounts.   For example, keying a number 2 will translate as $2.00 resulting in an incorrect calculation for the federal withholding
• Please also verify the amount(s) in the additional withholding fields to ensure the correct amount has been entered.  

Population Affected: All Human Resources Offices

Contacts:

Statewide Customer Contact Center (916) 372-7200

HR Suggestions Email (All HR Staff) PPSDHRSuggestions@sco.ca.gov

CS Escalation Email (HR Supervisors and Managers)  PPSDOps@sco.ca.gov

Cal Employee Connect Email connecthelp@sco.ca.gov

Cal Employee Connect Feedback Email connectfeedback@sco.ca.gov 

SCO Key Initiatives:

Cal Employee Connect Project

CalATERS Replacement Project

California State Payroll System Project