Overview
Beyond federal payroll tax obligations, businesses must also comply with state-level payroll and employment tax requirements set by each state’s tax and workforce agencies. These obligations differ significantly from state to state, covering different forms, filing frequencies, and thresholds.
The TaxBandits API lets you automate these state filings directly from your existing systems, without building a separate integration for each state agency. This overview consolidates the three categories of state reporting the API supports:
- State Withholding — state income tax withheld from employee wages.
- State Unemployment Insurance (UI) — employer-paid tax that funds unemployment benefits.
- State New Hire Reporting — reporting of newly hired and rehired employees to the state.
The TaxBandits API provides a single, reliable way to automate state withholding and state unemployment insurance (UI) and New Hire filings directly from your existing systems, without needing to build a separate integration for each state agency.
| State Withholding | State UI | State New Hire Reporting | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | The amount deducted from an employee’s wages to meet state income tax obligations. | A tax that funds temporary financial assistance for workers who lose their jobs through no fault of their own. | Reporting of newly hired and rehired employees to the state’s Directory of New Hires. |
| Who remits / reports | Employers, on behalf of employees. | Employers, based on wages paid. | Employers, for each new or rehired employee. |
| Cadence | Typically monthly or quarterly, depending on the state. | Typically quarterly. | Typically within 20 days of hire (verify per state). |
| Reported to | The state’s Department of Revenue (or equivalent). | The state’s Department of Labor / Workforce agency. | The state Directory of New Hires (forwarded to the National Directory). |
Not sure about your state payroll filing requirements? Check now
Note: For State Withholding and UI reporting, the state-entry methods have separate, state-specific endpoints — Create, Update, Get (payload differs per state) — while the rest are common endpoints shared across all states: List, Delete, Transmit, RequestPdfUrls, Status.
For New Hire, all methods use a single common endpoint set across the supported states
How to automate withholding and UI filings
Depending on the state you're filing in and its requirements, you can use the applicable endpoints to automate the filing of withholding and UI tax forms.
State-specific endpoints
Because each state defines its own form structure and data requirements, the payload differs per state and per form. These endpoints only apply to a specific state's form:
- Create: Generates a new withholding or UI form for the respective state.
- Update: Modifies a previously created withholding or UI form.
- Get: Retrieves the details of a previously created withholding or UI form.
Before filing, you can simulate the entire verification flow in our Sandbox environment without submitting real data to state agencies. See how
Common endpoints
These endpoints share the same payload structure across all states, and apply uniformly whether you're working with a withholding form or a UI form:
- List: Retrieves a list of forms created for a specific business or period.
- Delete: Removes an in-progress form before it's transmitted to the state.
- Transmit: Submits a completed form to the corresponding state agency.
- RequestPdfUrls: Returns a link to download the PDF version of a form.
- Status: Checks whether a submitted form was accepted or rejected by the state.
How to automate New Hire filings
New hire reporting is automated through a single set of endpoints that applies across all supported reporting states. Unlike withholding and UI, there are no state-specific endpoints — the payload structure is shared, and state-specific requirements are handled through conditional fields within the same report rather than through separate forms per state.
Create: Generates a new hire report for an employee for the specified reporting state(s).
Update: Modifies a previously created new hire report before it's transmitted.
List: Retrieves a list of new hire reports created for a specific business.
Get: Retrieves the details of a previously created new hire report.
Delete: Removes an in-progress new hire report before it's transmitted to the state.
Transmit: Submits a completed new hire report to the corresponding state agency.
Status: Checks whether a submitted new hire report was accepted or rejected by the state.