The region's major employers anticipate few if any problems putting savings from just-reduced federal tax rates into their employees' pockets beginning with the first paychecks they issue in July.

"We'll be ready," Mellon Financial Corp. spokesman Ronald Gruendl said yesterday. He noted the financial services firm already is receiving all "updates" in the formulas used to compute federal tax rates and should have plenty of time to test its payroll system in June.

Mellon and other large employers surveyed yesterday said they used computerized payroll systems and typically need only to plug the new formulas into software, which then makes the changes automatically.

The first paychecks companies issue in July are supposed to reflect the new tax rates, but there's no penalty if they don't, said William Cressman, a spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service. "We recognize some businesses will have to take a little more time to make these adjustments."

Revised formulas for computing new payroll withholding rates for employees across the spectrum of income brackets already have been posted on the Internal Revenue Service's Web site, Cressman said.

In addition, tax tables that show pre-calculated withholding amounts for different income levels, and pay periods should be on the site by the end of the week, he said. Smaller employers sometimes use the tables to enter new withholding amounts for each employee.

Cressman said individuals who want to calculate what their tax liability might be for the year also can go to the Web site, www.irs.gov, and compute how much their savings was for the first half of the year before adjustments to payroll systems went into effect. The new tax rates are retroactive to Jan. 1.

Some tax advisers, however, have recommended that individuals not try to tinker with their withholding to recoup the savings early. A miscalculation, or failure to predict the amount of deductions any taxpayer might accrue before year-end, could result in an underpayments.