Payment Taxes - Overview
This section does not apply to nonprofit and governmental employers, Indian tribes and churches/religious organizations which have chosen and been approved to reimburse the Department of Economic Security for benefit payments charged to their accounts in lieu of paying quarterly taxes.
Your tax payment is due on the same date your report is due. If quarterly reports and payments are filed late, penalties and interest are assessed.
State unemployment taxes are used solely for the payment of unemployment benefits and cannot be withheld from employees' wages. Be sure to compute the amount of taxable wages accurately following the instructions provided on the form. Taxable wages are the first $8,000 ($7,000 in gross wages before January 1, 2023) in gross wages paid to each employee in a calendar year. Check your calculations carefully and watch the decimal point in the tax rate when figuring the amount of taxes to pay.
You must report total gross wages paid to all employees in the quarter, but pay taxes on only the first $8,000 ($7,000 in gross wages before January 1, 2023) paid to each employee in the calendar year. Subtract "excess wages" (amounts over $8,000 ($7,000 before January 1, 2023) paid to each employee in a calendar year) from total wages to determine taxable wages. Remember, if you are a successor employer, you may take into account wages paid by the former owner in the same calendar year you acquired the business to compute your taxable portion of wages paid to any of the former owner’s employees you continued to employ.
Once you have an Arizona unemployment tax account number, you are encouraged to submit quarterly wage reports and pay taxes by using our online filing and payment system. Do not complete and submit the paper report form if you have submitted your report online. Online payments may be made either along with or separately from online report filing, or you may select the paper check payment option, which generates a payment voucher for you to print and submit along with your payment by check.