The U.S. Congress had so much fun messing around with taxes in 2010 that state and local governments decided to keep on making changes right into 2011. It’s now well into February and a few final updates are still trickling in, so be patient with your accounting and/or payroll vendors! Fortunately the nice folks in Washington extended certain deadlines to help make up for it, so now you just have to convince your employees to wait that long for their first paycheck of the year (we’re kidding, please don’t try this). 

At the heart of the delay is the fact that many states base their taxes on a percentage of the Federal tax - sort of. When Federal taxes change, states don't necessarily want it to impact their revenues, so they simply change the percentage basis used in the calculation.  The more the Feds monkey with the tax code, the more state legislators must scramble to compensate, and the longer we - as in all of us - wait to see what the new code dictates.