ReserveNotes

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Shorter Delivery Schedule for Social Security Payments

Effective Sept. 3, the Treasury reduced the amount of time between the delivery and settlement of Social Security payments that are deposited electronically into your customers' accounts. Instead of being delivered four days before settlement, payments now will be delivered to you three days prior.

This will give the Social Security Administration more time to determine which recipients are deceased, resulting in fewer return transactions to the Treasury. Over the next couple of years, the Treasury plans to eventually convert all federal benefit payments to this shorter processing window. If you have any questions, call Julie Dalton in St. Louis at (314) 444-8714.

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Revised Fedline Screen Simplifies EFTPS

Sending customer tax payments to the IRS using the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) just got a little easier. If you use the ACH credit option, Fedline now creates the addenda record for you.

Previously, financial institutions had to manually create these addenda records on Fedline. If data were entered incorrectly, the wrong information would be transmitted. Now a new Fedline screen contains pre-defined subcategory fields under the "Addenda Information" section. You simply enter the appropriate information into the subcategories and the addenda is automatically created.

A Fedline patch containing this enhancement, along with a new pre-formatted Fedline screen that enables you to send customer state taxes, will be issued in September. If you have any questions or would like a step-by-step Fedline helpsheet that walks you through an EFTPS credit payment, contact Karen Harper in St. Louis at (314) 444-8947.

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IRS Now Accepts EFTPS Reversals

This summer, the IRS announced that you can now reverse erroneous EFTPS entries sent using the ACH credit option. In the past, if you accidentally transmitted a tax payment twice, sent an ACH debit instead of a credit, or forwarded a payment with the wrong effective entry date, you had to work with the IRS to correct the mistake. Now you can simply send an ACH reversal.

EFTPS reversals must be sent in accordance with the ACH rules (pages OR 4 and OR 5 in the 1997 NACHA Rule Book). Please contact Karen Harper in St. Louis at (314) 444-8947 if you have any questions.

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Updated Guidelines Available for Same-Day Electronic Tax Payments

If you use the Fedwire same-day mechanism to initiate electronic tax payments for your customers and originate wires in the expanded funds format, you should have on hand the latest copy of Depository Institution Guidelines for Use of the Fedwire Same-Day Tax Deposit in EFTPS. This document, initially issued by the Federal Reserve in September 1996, has been revised, and a new June 1997 version is now available.

The new issue reflects changes brought about from the expanded funds format. It also contains samples of several new Fedline screens and includes information specific to third-party payroll processors. If you have questions on Fedwire or would like to obtain a copy of the new guidelines, contact Dwana Davis in St. Louis at (314) 444-8973. For general questions on EFTPS, call Nancy Klages at (314) 444-8707.

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Quality Report to Be Published Quarterly

This summer, the St. Louis Fed distributed its first quality report, which listed the Eighth District's 1996 quality measure goals for each financial services department and summarized our performance on each.

In the future, we plan to publish this report quarterly. We want to keep you up to date on our performance and provide current information on any occurrence that could have affected our service. If you would like a copy of the 1996 quality report, contact Cheryl McCarthy in St. Louis at (314) 444-8459.

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More NACHA Rule Changes Coming Down the Pike

Late this past summer, two amendments to the NACHA rules were announced. The first one, effective Sept. 19, requires that Originator/ODFI agreements include an acknowledgment by the Originator that their ACH entries comply with U.S. laws, including economic sanctions administered by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

The second amendment, effective Dec. 19, requires an ACH Originator to notify the Receiver when a reversing entry is being sent to the Receiver's account. This notification, which must be sent no later than the settlement date of the reversing entry, must contain the reason for the reversal. For more information on either of these changes, contact Julie Dalton in St. Louis at (314) 444-8714.