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Mississippi Unemployment Insurance Update

December 31st, 2006 Posted by Mark

New employers in the state of Mississippi, you most likely will have to participate in that state’s unemployment insurance system too. The way it works with the Mississippi Department of Employment Security, or the MDES, is that new employers are liable to pay unemployment insurance if they match the proper employer status, if they have bought or acquired another company that was already liable for unemployment insurance taxes, or if they voluntarily decide to be liable for the taxes.

What I meant before when I said that a new employer could be liable if “they match the proper employer status” was that liability for unemployment insurance tax is determined by how much you are paying out to your employees, and what type of employees they are. For instance, even for domestic workers—such as nannies, baby sitters, house cleaners—you could be considered a liable employer if you pay them more than $1000 in a quarter.

When it comes to agricultural companies, you could be a liable employer if you pay more than $20,000 in wages in a calendar quarter or have 10 or more workers on your pay roll in some portion of a day during 20 different weeks in the year. Nonprofits even have to pay unemployment insurance taxes if they have more than four workers employed on some portion of a day in 20 or more different weeks out of the year.

For your standard for-profit business, which I am suspecting most of you are, the liability levels come at the payment of more than $1500 of wages in a quarter, or one worker employed during the course of a day in at least 20 weeks out of the year.

Just registering with the Mississippi Department of Employment Security to determine your level of liability for unemployment insurance taxes is just one of the steps that a new employer must do in the state. Don’t forget that you also need a unemployment insurance benefits poster for each and every one of your work sites.