Texas takes no income tax out of a paycheck, and that one fact convinces a lot of owners there is nothing here to register for. There is.
There is no state income tax here, so nothing comes out of a Texas paycheck for the state on that account. That part genuinely is simpler than it is in most places, and it is the reason the rest gets overlooked.
An unemployment tax account with the Texas Workforce Commission. This is the one people miss. It is an employer tax and not a deduction, so it never appears on anybody's payslip and nobody asks about it.
New hires are reported to the state as well. A provider will usually handle that once the account is connected, and that is worth checking rather than assuming.
You need the federal employer number before the state account, because the state form asks for it. Getting one is quick. Using the wrong one, or an old number from a business you closed years ago, is the mistake that takes months to unpick.
The account numbers, the rate the state assigned you, your legal name written the way the agency holds it, and the date you actually became an employer.
That last one causes more trouble than the rest put together. A start date typed wrong produces filings for quarters when you had nobody on the books, and every one of them has to be corrected by hand.
Each account named, who opens it, what it will be used for, and the detail the provider has to be given for it to file correctly.
Nobody's real figures are printed here. The rows show the shape of the list.
Putting payroll in place is ordinary work and there's no CPA license at this desk. Assurance reports, audits, reviews and compilations stay with a firm that holds one.
We also don't run payday from here, and that's deliberate rather than a gap. The provider is yours, the login is yours, and the button is yours. If a bank wants a signed statement, you'll hear that before any calendar gets discussed. The longer version is on the disclosures page.
Source. The reserved-report rules at Texas Occupations Code sections 901.451, 901.453 and 901.456, read 29 September 2026 while writing about payroll setup.
Every account opened here turns up on a return later. The unemployment account feeds the federal unemployment credit. The employer number ties the payroll filings to the entity that files the income tax return. Open them under slightly different names and the two never quite reconcile.
Breadth is one desk opening the accounts and later preparing the return that has to agree with them. Height is the read in October, while the wage and the distribution can still be moved.
I thought Texas meant there was nothing to register. What I actually wanted was somebody to check the details before the first filing went out.
Before the first hire, or after a year of guessing, either one is enough to start.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.