Effective October 2025 for Tax Year 2024 FUTA Program

Contents

Purpose...............................................................................................................................................3

What’s New.........................................................................................................................................3

Headquarters staff (HQ) . .....................................................................................................................3

Calendar timeframes to remember . ....................................................................................................3

Reminders...........................................................................................................................................3

Background.........................................................................................................................................4

Overview . ............................................................................................................................................5

Protecting Confidentiality of Data.......................................................................................................6

General Information . ...........................................................................................................................6

Secure Data Transfer (SDT).................................................................................................................8

Prior Year Certification Problems........................................................................................................12

Programming Conventions and Definitions . .......................................................................................13

Employer Identification Number (EIN).................................................................................................13

Quarterly EIN Update Data . ................................................................................................................14

Certification Requirements . ................................................................................................................15

Identification Data Records.................................................................................................................16

Certification Data Record....................................................................................................................17

Review Procedures . ............................................................................................................................20

Manual Certification/Re-certification Requests..................................................................................20

IRS Assignment of Employer Identification Number (EIN)..................................................................21

Exhibits . ..............................................................................................................................................23

Exhibit 1 - Example of a Transmittal Letter for Forms 940-C.......................................................23

Exhibit 2 - External Label for Form 940-C (From State)...............................................................23

Exhibit 3a - FUTA Identification Data File.....................................................................................24

Exhibit 3b - FUTA State Certification Data . ..................................................................................24

Exhibit 3c - Reformatted FUTA Quarterly Entity Extract Data......................................................26

Exhibit 3d - FUTA Certification Control File Record Layout (State Agency to IRS)......................27

Exhibit 4 - List of State Abbreviations and State Agency Codes:................................................28

Exhibit 5 - SBSE CAMPUS CONTACT ADDRESSES...................................................................28

Exhibit 6 - States’ Information System and Manual Certification Request Contacts...................29

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This Publication will be posted on the website www.irs.gov/formspubs during the last two weeks of September, before files are sent to the state agencies.

Purpose

This Publication provides instructions for the certification of state FUTA credits.

What’s New

Updated the naming convention, changed all of the years to reflect the current year’s process and updated state agency contacts.

Form Indicators are not to be changed for any reason.

Headquarters staff (HQ)

The IRS Headquarters (HQ) staff contact is Amy Crooks. You may contact her by email: amy.m.crooks@irs.gov .

Calendar timeframes to remember

September: IRS Enterprise Computing Center-MTB (Martinsburg) performs the annual FUTA Identification Data extract.

October: Enterprise Computing Center-MTB transmits the FUTA Identification Data File to the states.

January: States transmit FUTA Certification Data via Secure Large File Transfer (SLFT) Business to Business (B2B) to the IRS.

February: Enterprise Computing Center-MTB validates and processes State FUTA Certification data.

FUTA HQ staff notifies the state of invalid data and requests replacement files.

April: States must have their correct certification data to IRS in order to participate in the annual FUTA

Certification program processing.

May: IRS transmits the discrepancy data to ECC-MEM (Memphis) for campus processing.

NOTE: It is imperative the schedule be followed because of the statute expiration date to assess additional tax. The due date of Form 940 is the last day of the month following the end of the calendar year (January 31). The statute of limitations is three years after the due date or three years after the return was actually filed, whichever is later.

Reminders

Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Breach/Misrouted File

Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is any personal information that is linked or linkable to an individual. Examples include an individual’s name, social security number, date and place of birth, mother’s maiden name, financial transactions, medical history, and criminal or employment history. A PII breach is any incident where PII is lost, misused, or compromised. A suspected PII breach should be reported to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) and the IRS Office of Safeguards immediately.

Contact information is as follows:

TIGTA 1-800-366-4484 www.treas.gov/tigta

IRS Office of Safeguards https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/contact-irs-office-of-safeguards

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SLFT Monthly Update E-mails

IRS recommends that states sign up for monthly Secure Large File Transfer (SLFT) Business to Business (B2B) updates. Please see Section 3, Secure Large File Transfer for instructions on how to sign up. States may also receive the monthly updates through their local IRS Governmental Liaison (GL). The SLFT monthly updates provide relevant information about the Secure Large File Transfer system.

Changes to State Contacts

Please notify the HQ Staff on page 1 when any changes are made to the “States’ Information System and Manual Certification Request Contacts” information found in Exhibit 6.

IRS Validity Check

IRS runs a validity check comparing the Form Indicator with the payment fields. The IRS will not accept state records if payments are present in fields inappropriate for the Form Indicator shown. The comparison involves the following: