Software accounting error forces Monroe County to pay $150K penalty to IRS

Monroe County had to pay $150,000 to the IRS because payroll taxes were not fully paid in 2016.

County Manager Anita Buice said the IRS penalty resulted from issues after the county switched to new financial software in April 2016. The new system required additional steps to process payroll taxes than the previous software that Monroe County had used.

The fact that the full tax amount was not being paid was uncovered when Finance Director Ashley Wooley was performing a mid-year budget review. Wooley said she noticed the “employee figures were not right,” and after talking with the software company, she realized what led to the problem.

The software issue was resolved, but the county was later hit with the IRS penalty.

“Everything’s cleared up and running smoothly now,” Buice said Thursday afternoon.

The county is now in the process of searching for a finance director to join Wooley in the department.

“Our finance department is one person who handles an over $30 million budget, so we’ve been in need for having a second or third full-time (employee) in the department,” Buice said.

This story was originally published July 20, 2017 at 4:10 PM with the headline "Software accounting error forces Monroe County to pay $150K penalty to IRS."