IRS IS WORKING ON NEW WAGE WITHHOLDING GUIDELINES, BUT DON’T EXPECT ANY CHANGE IN YOUR PAYCHECK UNTIL NEXT MONTH

One of the recent changes to the federal income tax that has received less attention than you might expect is the revamp of the individual tax rates.  That change, along with the increase in the standard deduction, will probably have a noticeable impact on the tax liability of many individual taxpayers.  As a result, you might expect amounts withheld from your wages for federal income tax could be reduced.  
To implement those changes, the IRS says, in a statement issued on December 26, that it is working on “new 2018 withholding guidelines [that] will allow taxpayers to begin seeing the changes in their paychecks as early as February.”  In other words, don’t expect to see any change to the federal tax withholding in your first couple of paychecks this year.  The IRS statement adds this helpful advice for your payroll department: “In the meantime, employers and payroll service providers should continue to use the existing 2017 withholding tables and systems.”