MTO Paymentus

You either received these notices because you have a Michigan Treasury Online (MTO) personal user profile or you signed up for Treasury Outreach email notifications. The Paymentus communications are sent to all MTO users. You may or may not be impacted by the upcoming change to the MTO payment platform.

Michigan Treasury Online (MTO) is the web service platform that most Michigan business taxpayers and their service providers use to file, pay, and view/update information about their business taxes account with Treasury. Learn more about MTO at the MTO Help Center.

Paymentus is the name of the new electronic payment platform hosted by JP Morgan Chase, the state’s banking partner. There are multiple electronic payment pathways offered by Treasury – all hosted by JP Morgan Chase.

JP Morgan Chase is in the process of systematically converting all Treasury payment pathways from PayConnexion to Paymentus. Treasury’s ePayments portals for individual income tax and city taxes already utilize Paymentus. Michigan Treasury Online (MTO), the web service for most business taxes, will transition to Paymentus in spring of 2024.

Paymentus provides the following new services for MTO customers:

• same-day payments (when scheduled before 8:00 p.m. ET),
• expanded future payment scheduling up to one year, and
• automatic payment information retention through My Wallet.

In addition to the new features, Paymentus brings a change for MTO users who send electronic payments by a checking or savings account. If your bank account has an active Automated Clearing House (ACH) Debit Block, the Company ID must be updated to 0000408976. It’s important that you have both PayConnexion and Paymentus Company IDs (9037133001 and 0000408976) on file with your institution when making payments.

An ACH Debit Block prevents all electronic transactions from processing unless they are specifically authorized.

For bank accounts with an ACH Debit Block, the Company ID is a password that allows an ACH Debit payment to be processed.

Typically, the bank account owner enters into an agreement with the financial institution to place the debit block. If you are unsure if your bank account has an ACH Debit Block, ask your financial institution.

If you need more information, please read About Business Taxes EFT Debit Payments.

Answer each of the following questions:

1. Do you use MTO to pay business taxes electronically?
   1. If no, you may disregard the ACH Debit Block information.
   2. If yes, keep reading.
2. To pay business taxes through MTO, do you use a checking or savings account?
   1. If no, you are using a debit card or credit card. Debit and credit card transactions do not require a Company ID authorization.
   2. If yes, keep reading.
3. Have you placed an ACH Debit Block on the account you are using to process MTO business taxes payments with Treasury?
   1. If no, you do not need to take any action; the new MTO payment platform will work for you just as the current MTO payment platform does.
   2. If yes, you need to provide your financial institution with the updated Company ID (0000408976). It’s important that you have both PayConnexion and Paymentus Company IDs (9037133001 and 0000408976) on file with your institution when making payments.
   3. If you are unsure if you have an ACH Debit block, call your financial institution and ask; once you have a yes or no answer - come back to this question.

It is your responsibility to inform your financial institution that the Company ID associated with MTO payments will change to 0000408976. If you do not, your electronic payment may be rejected and could result in fees, penalty, and interest.

Normally, it takes financial institutions 3 to 5 business days to process a Company ID change.

No. Treasury electronic payment platforms are systematically transitioning to Paymentus. If you make electronic payments with Treasury for city of Detroit or individual income taxes, you will use the same updated Company ID number. All other Company ID numbers used by Treasury remain unchanged at this time.

JP Morgan Chase is the state of Michigan’s banking partner. They host all of Treasury’s electronic payment pathways, including the payment platform within MTO.

To understand if you need to take action related to the Paymentus change, follow these prompts:

1. Do you use MTO to pay business taxes electronically?
   1. If no, you may disregard the ACH Debit Block information.
   2. If yes, keep reading.
2. To pay business taxes through MTO, do you use a checking or savings account?
   1. If no, you are using a debit card or credit card. Debit and credit card transactions do not require a Company ID authorization.
   2. If yes, keep reading.
3. Have you placed an ACH Debit Block on the account you are using to process MTO business taxes payments with Treasury?
   1. If no, you do not need to take any action; the new MTO payment platform will work for you just as the current MTO payment platform does.
   2. If yes, you need to provide your financial institution with the updated Company ID (0000408976). It’s important that you have both PayConnexion and Paymentus Company IDs (9037133001 and 0000408976) on file with your institution when making payments.
   3. If you are unsure if you have an ACH Debit block, call your financial institution and ask; once you have a yes or no answer - come back to this question.

Start by contacting your financial institution to clarify their policy on this situation. In most instances, a Company ID only needs to be added once. In this case, Paymentus’ Company ID can be applied to two completely different originators because they are both utilizing the same payment platform. However, the originator for payments through MTO via Paymentus will be the Michigan Department of Treasury.

Any payments made by ACH Credit are outside MTO, therefore, the MTO payment platform change would not impact this process.

ACH Credit transactions do not require a Company ID number when there is an ACH Block on the account because the payment is authorized by you with your financial institution directly.

If you need more information, please read About Business Taxes Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) Payments.

Check with your service provider. Service providers often utilize ACH Credit to convey client tax payments to Treasury, but they may be using MTO. Regardless, if the tax payment directly to Treasury is not coming out of a bank account that you own, you will not be able to update the Company ID authorization if that action is necessary.

Unfortunately, because you are not an owner of the bank account, you cannot update the Company ID. Use the following question and answer prompts to decide if you need to have a conversation with your client about checking and updating ACH Debit Block/ Company ID status:

1. Are we (the service provider) using MTO to pay business taxes electronically for the client?
   1. If no, you may disregard the ACH Debit Block information as it is not applicable to the types of payments you make for this client.
   2. If yes, keep reading.
2. When paying business taxes for the client through MTO, do we (the service provider) use the client’s checking or savings account information?
   1. If no, and you are using the client’s payment information, you are using the client’s debit card or credit card. Debit and credit card transactions do not require a Company ID authorization.
   2. If yes, keep reading.
3. Does the client’s bank account have an ACH Debit Block?
   1. If no, no action needs to be taken by you or the client; the new MTO payment platform will work for your payment just as the current MTO payment platform does.
   2. If yes, your client needs to provide their financial institution with the updated Company ID (0000408976). It’s important that you have both PayConnexion and Paymentus Company IDs (9037133001 and 0000408976) on file with your institution when making payments.
   3. If you are unsure, check with the client. If the client is unsure, they need to call their financial institution and ask. Once they have a yes or no answer - come back to this question for guidance.

Visit michigan.gov/biztaxpayments.

While using MTO to file and/or pay is a great option for all eligible business taxes taxpayers, it is not a requirement for most taxpayers. If you currently mail checks and wish to continue doing so, that option is not changing.

The MTO payment platform upgrade does not mean that you will be required to make online payments.

If you would like to stop receiving informational business taxes emails from Treasury because you are no longer operating a business and are therefore no longer using MTO, you can update your email subscriptions. To do this, visit the Treasury Email Updates webpage, input your email address, click submit, and then uncheck the types of topical emails that you no longer want to receive from Treasury. We cannot update these preferences for you.

You can do this through Michigan Treasury Online (MTO) using the Manage Business Registration Service if you are already connected to the business taxes account. Alternatively, you can download and mail Form 163 – Notice of Change or Discontinuance.

Until tax types and/or the Treasury business taxes account is discontinued, you must file returns for taxes the entity is registered for (even if the tax obligation is $0). If you are unclear about your business’ registration status, contact the Business Taxes Contact Center, Registration Division.