What Employers Should Check Before the Week Is Over
The IRS published its payroll week reminder this month. Most of the list is not actually yours to carry. Here is the part that is.
National Payroll Week runs September 7 to 11, 2026. It was founded by PayrollOrg in 1996, and this year's theme is "Every Paycheck Creates Possibility." The idea behind it is simple: a paycheck is not just a transaction. It is rent, groceries, a retirement contribution, a kid's tuition payment.
The IRS marked the week with a reminder of its own (IR-2026-105, September 4, 2026), encouraging workers to review their withholding and employers to revisit their payroll tax responsibilities. That is a useful nudge, because payroll is one of the few business functions where the cost of a small mistake compounds quietly until it does not.
Here is what is worth checking this week.
Why the week matters more than it sounds
Two numbers put payroll in perspective.
66%
of the U.S. Treasury's annual revenue comes from payroll withholding, funding Social Security, Medicare, national defense, and infrastructure.
PayrollOrg, National Payroll Week
78%
of workers would find it somewhat or very difficult to meet their financial obligations if their paycheck were delayed by a single week. Up from 77% the year before.
PayrollOrg, 2025 "Getting Paid In America," 25,900+ respondents
Of the workers who said they would struggle, 29% would lean on friends, family, or savings, 26% would delay paying bills, and 25% would reach for a credit card.
So payroll accuracy is not an administrative nicety. One late run, one misapplied deposit, one bad direct deposit change, and the impact lands on someone's rent.
For your employees: the paycheck checkup
Federal income tax is generally paid throughout the year as income is earned. For employees, that means the employer withholds from each paycheck based on earnings and whatever the employee put on their Form W-4.
The problem is that most people fill out a W-4 once, on day one, and never look at it again. Life keeps moving. The IRS specifically flags these events as reasons to recheck withholding:
Starting or leaving a job
Working multiple jobs
Marriage or divorce
Birth or adoption of a child
A significant change in income
A change in tax law
The IRS Tax Withholding Estimator is a free tool that uses recent pay statements, income, deductions, and credits to show whether someone is having too much or too little withheld. If an adjustment is needed, the results help the employee complete a new W-4 and hand it to their employer. One detail worth repeating to your team: the W-4 goes to you, not to the IRS.
This is a low-effort, high-goodwill thing to push out during National Payroll Week. A short email with the estimator link costs you nothing and saves a handful of your people an unpleasant surprise in April.
For employers: five responsibilities, and who is actually holding them
The IRS lists five core obligations for employers and payroll professionals. Read them as a checklist, but read them with one question in mind: is this something I am doing, or something my payroll provider is already doing for me?
That distinction matters. Most of this list is not meant to sit on a business owner's desk. Each item below notes what a full-service payroll provider should be handling, and what still belongs to you no matter who runs your payroll.
Withhold employment tax accurately
Employers generally must withhold federal income tax, Social Security tax, and Medicare tax from wages. Publication 15 (Circular E) is the employer's tax guide, and Publication 15-T carries the withholding methods and tables.
Covered with Strongpay: We calculate and withhold using the current federal tables, and we apply rate and table changes as the IRS issues them. You do not need to track Pub 15-T revisions yourself.
Still yours: The inputs. Withholding is only as accurate as the W-4 on file and the hours and earnings that get submitted. Garbage in still comes out the other end.
Deposit federal taxes electronically
Federal tax deposits must be made by electronic funds transfer. Options include EFTPS, IRS Direct Pay for businesses, and Business Tax Account for eligible users.
Covered with Strongpay: We make your federal tax deposits electronically on the required schedule. There is no check to cut and no EFTPS deadline for you to calendar.
Still yours: Funding. Deposits come out of your account, so a cash timing problem is the one failure mode a provider cannot solve for you.
File employment tax returns on time
Forms 940, 941, 943, 944, and 945 can be filed electronically.
Covered with Strongpay: We e-file these on your behalf. If you are with us, this line item is done.
Still yours: Very little, other than telling us promptly when something structural changes, like a new state, a new entity, or an ownership change.
Maintain payroll records
Keep all employment records for at least four years.
Covered by Strongpay: Your payroll records are retained and retrievable for the period you have been with us.
Still yours, and this is the real gap: The years before us. Record retention almost always breaks at a provider change, when access to the old system quietly lapses and nobody notices until there is a notice or an audit.
If you switched payroll providers in the last four years, go confirm today that you can still produce records from the prior system. If you cannot, that is worth fixing this week.
Protect payroll data
The IRS calls out four controls: verify changes to direct deposit or employee information through a trusted channel, limit access to payroll systems, use multifactor authentication, and stay alert to phishing and credential theft.
Covered with Strongpay: Multifactor authentication is in place on your payroll system logins.
Still yours, and this is where the risk lives: The two human controls. Who at your company can access payroll, and how you verify a request to change someone's bank details.
Direct deposit diversion fraud is not a hack. It arrives as a polite email from what looks like an employee's personal address, asking to update banking details before Friday's run. It is boring and plausible, which is exactly why it works. No system setting stops it. The fix is a rule: never change bank details based on an email alone. Call the employee at a number already on file. Every time, including when you are busy, and especially when you are busy.
What is actually new this year
The 2026 Form W-2 reporting changes are the item to watch. If you handle payroll in-house, that work is yours, and year-end arrives faster than anyone plans for. Reporting changes are far cheaper to absorb in September than in January. If you are with Strongpay, we are already tracking these changes and will build them into year-end processing, so the practical impact on you should be limited to confirming your employee data is clean before December.
A short checklist for this week
Most of the IRS list is already running in the background if you have a full-service provider. These are the four things that are genuinely yours to do, and none of them take long.
Send your team the Tax Withholding Estimator link with a one-line note about why it matters
Write down your verification procedure for direct deposit changes, and make sure whoever processes payroll actually knows it. A rule nobody has written down is not a control
Review who at your company can access payroll, and remove anyone who no longer needs it
If you changed payroll providers in the last four years, confirm you can still retrieve records from the prior system
If you handle payroll in-house rather than through a provider, add two more: confirm multifactor authentication is on for every payroll login, and verify your federal deposit schedule and filing calendar against Publication 15.
One last thing
National Payroll Week exists to recognize payroll professionals, and that part should not get lost in the compliance checklist. Payroll is a job where doing it perfectly is invisible and doing it wrong is the only thing anyone notices. Millions of paydays happen every week because somebody stayed late to reconcile a variance nobody else will ever see.
If your company has a payroll person, this is a good week to tell them you noticed.
Curious what's covered and what's still yours? Let's walk through your current setup. Contact us at payroll@strongpay.com.