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Overview
In August 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), commonly referred to as "Welfare Reform", which included a mandate that all states must establish a central repository for new hire reporting and that all employers must report their new hires for inclusion in the repository.
Introduction - The Tennessee New Hire Reporting Program is a centralized, confidential and secure facility that receives and processes hiring data regarding new employees in the State of Tennessee. Specifically, the information collected by the Tennessee New Hire Reporting Program will help individuals who pay child support by wage withholding stay current with their child support payments so their children receive support on time. The benefits of this program save Tennessee taxpayers millions of dollars annually in several ways. Prompt reporting of newly hired or re-hired employee information prevents fraud in the Unemployment Compensation program, protects your Unemployment Reserve Account and keeps your Unemployment Insurance taxes low. Information provided by employers will also be used to combat fraud in Workers' Compensation, food stamps, and TANF programs.
This information will also be supplied to the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, who will in turn pass that information on to other state child support agencies for the same purposes. We are providing this on-line service as part of our ongoing initiative to provide employers with an efficient gateway to program information and a means to submit new hire reports by a variety of mediums.
How it Works - Employers are required by law to send the information collected on an employee's W4 to the Tennessee New Hire Reporting Program. The Tennessee Department of Human Services (TDHS) will compare daily the reports from the employers against the database of individuals who are required to pay child support. When a "match" occurs, TDHS will send a wage withholding notice to the noncustodial parent's employer, notifying the employer to withhold child support and remit the funds to TDHS. TDHS will also forward the information to the National Directory of New Hires.
