labor lawAdivision of labor law center

The Department of Revenue is the agency in the state of Massachusetts that handles the new hire reporting for employers. The Department of Revenue in Massachusetts collects all of the new hire information from employers, as well as information on independent contractors, and has the job of putting it all together on a computer database.

Then the Massachusetts Department of Revenue compares its own database for new hires with a database for people who are not paying their required child support payments. When a match comes up between the two lists, then the Massachusetts Department of Revenue contacts you, the employer. They then ask you to withhold funds from that employee’s paycheck so that they can begin to pay off their child support payments. Or the state Department of Revenue will ask you to remit funds directly to them.

The Massachusetts Department of Revenue doesn’t stop there. It next compares its database of names of new hires to other databases, particularly those that have to do with public welfare benefits, such as food stamps, unemployment compensation, and transitional assistance. Here, the comparative databases are provided by other Massachusetts agencies, like the Department of Transitional Assistance and the Department of Unemployment Assistance. The purpose of these checks are to make sure that people should be getting these programs, and that people who are that shouldn’t be are stopped. We’re talking millions in fraud money that the Massachusetts Department of Revenue could put a halt to.

To this end, Massachusetts employers, consider it your duty to report all of your new employees and new independent contractors to the Department of Revenue. You should double check first before you start whether or not the payroll service you use already does the reporting for you, because some do, or can if you ask them.

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