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  3. Top 15 Reasons Employees Should Review Their Earnings and Leave Statement

Top 15 Reasons Employees Should Review Their Earnings and Leave Statement

Did you know some personnel actions will generate a conflict with state tax withholdings throughout the year. If they are not fixed in a timely manner, they will reflect incorrectly on the employee’s W2 form. This happens when the system is updated for a personnel action such as a promotion, reassignment, relocation, or detail assignment.

There are also system edits in the United States Department of Agriculture Human Resources system that will delete existing tax waivers and cause incorrect state withholdings. Employees should be aware and take an active role in regularly reviewing their Earnings and Leave Statement (ELS).

Below are the top 15 reasons it is recommended that employees review their ELS. This list is not isolated to tax corrections and is not all inclusive, but it will help employees proactively identify issues if they exist. If you have questions or concerns, contact the Payroll Service Desk at payroll-information@cbp.dhs.gov.

The top 15 reasons include the following:

  1. Immediately after the employee comes onboard
  • Prevent carry-over of retention incentives from another DHS agency when transferring to CBP.
  • Verify that the salary, grade, and step are accurate.
  • Ensure benefits and deductions transferred correctly.
  • Ensure the previous agency’s union dues do not transfer over after transferring from another DHS agency.
  1. Following a promotion, reassignment, relocation, or a change to duty station
  • Ensure the salary is correct for the duty location.
  • Ensure union dues stopped from the previous position and started when changing to or from a Non-Bargaining Unit (BU) or Bargaining Unit (BU) position.
  1. Starting or stopping a detail
  • Ensure union dues are stopped or started when beginning or returning from a detail assignment.
  1. Changes to Benefits to Federal Employees Group Life Insurance (FEGLI) or Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB)
  • Ensure all benefits are updated appropriately after changes are made during election season.
  1. Within-Grade Increases (WGIs)
  • Each General Schedule (GS) grade has 10 steps. Within-grade increases (WGIs) or step increases are periodic increases in a GS employee's rate of basic pay from one step of the grade of his or her position to the next higher step of that grade.
  • Ensure WGIs are accounted for properly.
  1. Beginning and end to the leave and tax year
  • Know the leave ceiling of your position.
  • Keep track of leave and use or lose leave balances prior to the end of the leave year.
  • Ensure tax corrections generated earlier in the year are fixed to avoid W2 corrections.
  1. Pay period prior to a “final” time card submission
  • Know available leave prior to marking the final time card, and do not advance leave that is not earned.
  • Know the leave accrual is not earned if the time card is marked final and less than 80 hours of paid time is reported. Prevent separation debt.
  1. When you receive travel relocation or temporary quarters
  • If receiving a travel relocation or temporary quarters payment, monitor your ELS for other types of retention and relocation incentives.
  • If incentives are paid as a percentage and if released in the same pay period as travel payments, USDA programming may cause a shortfall of the actual incentive.
  1. Changes to deductions and allotments
  • Ensure those changes made in the Employee Personal Page (EPP) applied correctly.
  1. Changes to tax withholdings
  • Ensure the W4 is updated properly. If applicable, ensure total tax exemptions are always updated by PP04 of each new year.
  1. Pay period when Leave Without Pay (LWOP) starts or ends
  • Validate time cards are correct.
  • If activating under military orders, ensure LWOP is on the personnel record.
  • If you are in a LWOP status for 30 days or more, a LWOP personnel action should be submitted.
  • If you are in a LWOP status, you may not be authorized the holiday. You must be in a paid status the day before or day after a holiday.      
  1. Make sure you are aware when beginning or ending a relocation or receiving a recruitment and retention incentive.
  2. Track every time you change Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) deductions or start and stop a TSP Loan
  • Ensure you allocate your TSP deductions appropriately for the number of pay periods reported in a tax year.
  • Ensure you update your TSP deductions properly and review EPP carefully when updating between a traditional TSP and Roth TSP.
  1. Keep track of every time you donate leave to the Voluntary Leave Transfer Program (VLTP) or have leave restored
  • Ensure you know when the VLTP donations were deducted or when leave has been restored.
  • Restored leave reported on the ELS reflects up to three different years you may carry over a restored leave balance. After two years, restored leave, if not used, may be forfeited forever.
  1. At a minimum of once per month, review the ELS to know your pay amount and all deductions withheld. If deployed on military duty, be aware of what leave has been coded and always ensure before Emergency Military Leave (EML) is coded the EML COOP Share is updated.
Last Modified: Jun 26, 2023
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