As of January 1, 2005, the IRS increased the minimum threshold for Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) deposits. Under the previous rule, employers were required to make a quarterly deposit for unemployment taxes if the accumulated tax exceeded $100. Now the threshold is $500.The IRS estimates that this change will lighten the load for more than 4 million small businesses. Assuming an employer makes timely state unemployment tax payments, the most that the IRS will collect from employers per employee is $56 per year. Before the threshold was increased, most employers with two or more employees had to make at least one federal tax deposit a year. Now employers with eight employees or fewer will be freed from the requirement of making as many as four FUTA deposits per year.