Recently, the State of Washington established a long-term care insurance benefit for all eligible workers through the WA Cares Fund. The fund is paid for entirely through employee tax deductions. Employers do not pay any additional taxes.
Employees in Washington will begin to see the additional tax deduction from their paychecks beginning January 1, 2022. For companies working with Helpside, we will submit these taxes to the state of Washington on behalf of employers and handle the required quarterly reporting.
If employees would like to apply for an exemption from the tax, they can submit an application and proof that they already have a long-term care policy in place to the state of Washington before December 31, 2021. Once an employee has been approved for tax exemption, they can provide Helpside with the exemption paperwork, by emailing tax@helpside.com and we will remove the tax deduction.
We encourage you to remind employees of the new tax and the deadline for applying for an exemption. If you have questions, you can reach out to the Client Success team at Helpside at service@helpside.com. To learn more about the WA Cares Fund, you can visit http://wacaresfund.wa.gov/learn-more.