Are Employee Retention Credit Real

COVID-19’s pandemic caused unimaginable hardships to many organizations and businesses around the globe. Lockdowns, social distance, health and security measures and lockdowns have caused many employers to face reduced revenue, increased expenses and disruptions in their operations.

The Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERC) is a refundable credit that employers can use to offset payroll costs.

The ERC has been in place since 2020 when the CARES Act was passed. Later, in 2021 and again in 2023, it was modified and extended by new legislation. The ERC will be explained in this article, along with how it works and the different eligibility criteria and time periods for which it can be claimed.

For a brief reading of what the Employee Retention Credit or ERC is, take a look at this video from the YouTube channel “ERC Specialists”. You can also continue below to read an in-depth explanation of ERC.

What is the Employee Retention Credit? Are Employee Retention Credit Real

The Employee Retention Credit (ERC) is a refundable tax credit for businesses and tax-exempt organizations that had employees and were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The ERC was established by the CARES Act of 2020 and extended and modified in subsequent legislations in 2021 and in 2023. The ERC encourages employers to maintain their workers and to provide health benefits to them during the crisis.

The Main Features and Benefits

The credit is equal to a percentage of qualified wages and health insurance costs paid to eligible employees, up to a certain limit per employee per quarter.
The credit limit and percentage are dependent on the period of time for which you claim the credit. In 2020, the 50% percentage and $5,000 limit per employee is applicable for the entire calendar year. In 2021, 70% of the employees will be eligible for the maximum. The limit per employee is $7,000. For 2023, the percentage is 70% for the first two quarters and 40% for the last two quarters, and the limit is $10,000 per employee per quarter. Are Employee Retention Credit Real
The credit amount is fully refundable, meaning if the credit exceeds your employer’s tax liability on payroll, you will receive the excess as a reimbursement.
Employers can claim this credit if they experienced a significant decrease in gross receipts due to an order from the government relating to COVID-19. Alternatively, for 2023 only, employers who are considered recovery startup businesses can also claim the credit.
Credits can be claimed either by amending your employment tax return (Form 941)-X or by reducing your employment tax deposit in anticipation of receiving the credit. Employers can request an advance payment by submitting Form 7200.

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Criteria for Eligibility

Employers who wish to qualify for Employee Retention Credit (ERC) must meet two main criteria.

The employer’s business or organisation was suspended in whole or in part by a government decree due to the COVID-19, during a quarter calendar of 2020 or 21
The employer’s gross revenues for a quarterly calendar period in 2020, 2021 or both were less that 50% (for the 2020 quarter) or 80% (2021 quarter) of its gross revenue for the same year-ago quarter.

The recovery startup rule also applies to businesses that began operating after February 14, 2020 and had average annual gross receipts not exceeding $1 million. These businesses may qualify for ERC regardless of revenue or business suspension.

Business Suspension

A government order can either suspend or fully suspend a company or organization if the following conditions are met:

The order restricts the commerce, travel and group meetings that are prohibited by COVID-19
The order has a direct impact on the operations of an organization or business
The order applies to all calendar quarters in 2020 and 2021

Here are some examples of government orders that can result in a business being suspended:

Stay-at-home orders that restrict non-essential businesses from operating
Curfews are restrictions on the hours that certain businesses can operate
Capacity limitations that reduce the amount of customers or clientele that a firm can service
Travel restrictions or travel bans that limit the ability of businesses to transport products or services

To determine if a business was fully or partially suspended by a government order, an employer must consider:

The order’s nature, scope, and impact on the business
The order’s duration, frequency, and alignment with the calendar quarters
The impact of an order on revenue and expenses

Revenue Decline

It is considered that a business or organization has experienced a significant drop in gross receipts when:

The gross receipts in any calendar quarter of 2020 will be less than 50% the gross receipts in the same quarter of 2019.
The gross receipts from any calendar quarter during 2021 are less than 80% compared to the same quarter’s gross receipts from 2019.

Gross receipts are defined as the total amount received or accrued by a business or organization from all sources during its annual accounting period without any deductions. Gross receipts include the following:

Sales of Goods and Services
Dividends, rents, and royalties, as well as interest, are all examples of annuities.
Gifts, donations, and contributions Are Employee Retention Credit Real
Membership dues
Gross profit from business or trade

To compare gross receipts between different quarters of the year, employers must use:

Use the same method (cash or accrual accounting) as it used when filing its federal income taxes for 2019
The same calendar year quarters that it used to file its federal employment tax returns (Form 941) for 2019 and 2020/2021
The same sources of income that it reported on its federal income tax return for 2019

Recovery Startup Business

A startup that is in recovery can be defined as

Began carrying on any trade or business after February 15, 2020,
If you have average annual gross revenues of less than $1 million in any three tax-year period that ends with the tax-year preceding the calendar quarter for credit determination.

A recovery startup business can qualify for the ERC regardless of whether it meets the criteria of business suspension or revenue decline. However, there are some limitations and special rules that apply to recovery startup businesses, such as:

The maximum credit amount per quarter is $50,000
The credit is only applicable to wages paid for the third and fourth quarters of 2021
The credit is subject to an overall cap of $250 million for all recovery startup businesses

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Credit Amount and Calculation

The ERC has different rules and amounts for different periods of time and different types of employers. The main factors that affect the ERC are:

How much business income dropped compared to 2019.
Employer’s number of employees in 2019 or 2021, and whether the employee worked or not.
How much did the employer pay each employee in health insurance?

To receive the ERC, employers must submit forms to the IRS. The form must show the amount the employer paid for their employees’ health insurance, and how they qualified for the ERC. The IRS will review the forms and pay the money back to the employer. The employer could use this money to pay health insurance for employees or to get refunds and credits for payroll taxes.

The ERC won’t be around forever. The ERC started in March 2020 and ends in September 2022. Employers must claim their ERC before they expire or become unavailable. The employer has to spend the money efficiently and not waste. Are Employee Retention Credit Real

You can find more information below on ERC calculation and credit amount.

Time Period

The ERC was implemented, amended, or terminated by various laws in 2020. The credit amount varies depending on the time period for which it is claimed. The table below summarizes key differences and features of the ERCs for each time period:

Time Period	Law	Eligible Employers	Credit Rate	Qualified Wages
2020	CARES Act	Employers with business suspension or revenue decline of more than 50%	50% of qualified wages up to $10,000 per employee per year	Wages paid from March 13 to December 31, 2020
Q1-Q3 2021	CAA and ARPA	Employers with business suspension or revenue decline of more than 20%	70% of qualified wages up to $10,000 per employee per quarter	Wages paid from January 1 to September 30, 2021
Q3-Q4 2021 (Recovery Startup Business)	ARPA	Recovery startup businesses with average annual gross receipts of no more than $1 million,	70% of qualified wages up to $10,000 per employee per quarter (subject to a $50,000 cap per quarter),	Wages paid from July 1 to December 31, 2021,
Q4 2021 – Q3 2022 (Severely Financially Distressed Employer)	ARPA and IIJA	Employers with a revenue decline of more than 90%	70% of qualified wages up to $10,000 per employee per quarter	Wages paid from October 1, 2021, to September 30, 2022

Number of Employees

The number of employees affects the definition and calculation of qualified wages and health insurance costs for eligible employees. A small employer or a large employer is determined by the number of employees who worked full-time (FTEs) in 2019 and the time period. This table summarizes thresholds and rules to determine the size of an employer for each period.

Time Period	Small Employer Threshold	Large Employer Threshold
2020	Less than or equal to 100 FTEs in 2019	More than 100 FTEs in 2019
Q1-Q2 2021	Less than or equal to 500 FTEs in 2019	More than 500 FTEs in 2019
Q3-Q4 2021	Less than or equal to 500 FTEs in any calendar quarter in either calendar year beginning after December 31, 2019, and ending before July 1, 2021. If an employer did not have in either calendar year beginning after December 31, 2019, and ending before July 1, 2021, the employer is treated as a small eligible employer if it had less than or equal to 500 FTEs in any calendar quarter beginning after June 30, 2021. For recovery startup businesses, the employer size is irrelevant. For severely financially distressed employers, the employer size is irrelevant if the employer had a revenue decline of more than 90%. Otherwise, the same rules as Q1-Q2 2021 apply.	More than 500 FTEs in any calendar quarter in either calendar year beginning after December 31, 2019, and ending before July 1, 2021. If an employer did not exist in either calendar year beginning after December 31, 2019, and ending before July 1, 2021, the employer is treated as a large eligible employer if it had more than 500 FTEs in any calendar quarter beginning after June 30, 2021.

To count FTEs for a given year or quarter, an employer must use the following steps:

Count the number of employees who worked at least 30 hours per week (or at least 130 hours per month) for each month in the year or quarter
Add up the total hours worked by all other employees (who are not counted as FTEs) for each month in the year or quarter
Divide the total hours by120and round down to the nearest whole number
Add the number of FTEs from Step One and Step Three for each month in the year or quarter
Calculate the average number of FTEs by adding up the monthly totals and dividing by 12 (for a year) or 3 (for a quarter)

Qualified Wages and Health Insurance Costs

Qualified Wages are wages that eligible employees receive during periods of suspension or decline in revenue. Qualified wages include tips, commissions, bonuses, severance pay, sick leave pay, family leave pay, and other forms of compensation. Qualified salaries also include the costs of providing health coverage to eligible workers, including premiums, copays, deductibles, and coinsurance.

The calculation of qualified wages, health insurance costs and employer size depends on the time period. The table below summarizes rules and examples in different scenarios. Are Employee Retention Credit Real

Employer Size	Time Period	Qualified Wages and Health Insurance Costs	Example
Small	2020	All wages and health insurance costs paid to any employee, regardless of whether the employee worked or not	An employer with 80 FTEs in 2019 paid $8,000 in wages and $2,000 in health insurance costs to an employee in 2020. The employer had a revenue decline of more than 50% in Q2 2020. The qualified wages and health insurance costs for Q2 2020 are $10,000.
Small	Q1-Q3 2021	All wages and health insurance costs paid to any employee, regardless of whether the employee worked or not	An employer with 400 FTEs in 2019 paid $12,000 in wages and $3,000 in health insurance costs to an employee in Q1 2021. The employer had a revenue decline of more than 20% in Q1 2021. The qualified wages and health insurance costs for Q1 2021 are $15,000.
Small	Q3-Q4 2021 (Recovery Startup Business)	All wages and health insurance costs paid to any employee, regardless of whether the employee worked or not (subject to a $50,000 cap per quarter)	A recovery startup business that began operations in March 2020 paid $9,000 in wages and $1,000 in health insurance costs to an employee in Q3 2021. The business had average annual gross receipts of $800,000. The qualified wages and health insurance costs for Q3 2021 are $10,000.
Small	Q4 2021 – Q3 2022 (Severely Financially Distressed Employer)	All wages and health insurance costs paid to any employee, regardless of whether the employee worked or not	An employer with 600 FTEs in Q2 2019 paid $11,000 in wages and $4,000 in health insurance costs to an employee in Q4 2021. The employer had a revenue decline of more than 90% in Q4 2021. The qualified wages and health insurance costs for Q4 2021 are $15,000.
Large	2020	Wages and health insurance costs paid to an employee for the time that the employee did not work (up to the amount that the employee would have been paid for working an equivalent duration during the 30 days immediately preceding the period of economic hardship)	An employer with 120 FTEs in 2019 paid $10,000 in wages and $2,000 in health insurance costs to an employee who worked full-time (40 hours per week) in 2020. The employer had a business suspension due to a government order in April 2020. The employee did not work for two weeks in April 2020. The qualified wages and health insurance costs for April 2020 are $2,308 ($10,000 x2/52+$2,000 x2/52).
Large	Q1-Q3 2021	Wages and health insurance costs paid to an employee for the time that the employee did not work (up to the amount that the employee would have been paid for working an equivalent duration during the 90 days immediately preceding the period of economic hardship)	An employer with 550 FTEs in 2019 paid $15,000 in wages and $5,000 in health insurance costs to an employee who worked full-time (40 hours per week) in Q1 2021. The employer had a revenue decline of more than 20% in Q1 2021. The employee did not work for three weeks in Q1 2021. The qualified wages and health insurance costs for Q1 2021 are $5,769 ($15,000 x3/13+$5,000 x3/13).
Large	Q3-Q4 2021 (Severely Financially Distressed Employer)	All wages and health insurance costs paid to any employee, regardless of whether the employee worked or not (only if the employer had a revenue decline of more than 90%. Otherwise, the same rules as Q1-Q32021 apply.)	An employer with 700 FTEs in Q4 2019 paid $12,000 in wages and $6,000 in health insurance costs to an employee who worked full-time (40 hours per week) in Q4 2021. The employer had a revenue decline of more than 90% in Q4 2021. The qualified wages and health insurance costs

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Claim and Report the Credit

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requires that employers claim the Employee-Retention Credit by filing a federal income tax return, Form 941, or a modified employment tax form (Form941X), with them. The employer has to report each quarter the wages and costs of health insurance paid to employees who are eligible and the credit claimed.

Form 941

Form 941 is used by employers to report their quarterly federal tax liabilities, which includes income tax, Medicare tax, and social security tax. The employer can also claim the ERC in Form 941 for future or current quarters. Form 941 is used by employers to:

ERC – Reduce the amount the employer is required to pay in taxes.
You can ask for advance payment if your ERC exceeds the amount of taxes you have to pay. Are Employee Retention Credit Real
Carry over any excess credit into the following quarter

To avoid making common errors and fill out Form 941 correctly, employers should:

Use the latest Form 941, which reflects all the updates and changes made to the ERC by new laws.
Use the IRS worksheets and instructions to calculate and report the ERC
Use Line 1c to report on the health insurance and wages that eligible employees have received.
Use Line 13d to report the amount of credit claimed for each quarter
Line 13f is used to report any advance payment of credit received by the IRS
Use Line 24 to request an advance payment of the credit if needed
Use Line 25 to report any credit excess that can be carried over to the next quarter.
Sign and date Form 941, and include any supporting documents and schedules.

The following are some resources and tips for filling in Form 941.

Use electronic filing (e-file) or online services to submit Form 941 faster and more securely
The IRS website has updated FAQs on the ERC and Form 941.
You can also contact a tax expert or the IRS for clarifications and assistance if you need it.

Form 941-X

Form 941-X allows you to correct mistakes or make adjustments in Form 941 that has already been filed. Form 941-X allows employers to claim ERC retroactively. The employer may use Form 941 to: Are Employee Retention Credit Real

Claim your refund or credit due to overpaid taxes by claiming the ERC
Report additional qualified wages paid and health insurance premiums paid to eligible workers that have not been reported on Form 941
The amount of credit claimed will be affected by any mistakes or omissions in Form 941.

To fill out Form 941-X correctly and avoid common errors, the employer should:

Use the most recent version of Form 941X, which reflects any changes or updates to the ERC laws.
Use the IRS worksheets and instructions to calculate and report the ERC
Use Part 2 to indicate the lines on Form 941 that are being corrected or adapted.
Use Part 3 to explain your corrections or adjustments on Form 941.
Use Line 24 to declare any additional qualified wages or health insurance costs paid by eligible employees.
Line 25 is the place to enter any additional credit claims for each quarter.
Use Line 26 when reporting any refund or credit that you have requested as a result of claiming your ERC
Sign and date Form 941, and attach any supporting documentation or schedules

Tips and resources on how to complete Form 941 X include:

File a separate Form 941-X for each quarter that is being corrected or adjusted Are Employee Retention Credit Real
Fill out Form 941-X immediately after you find an error in Form 941
You can find updates, FAQs, and more information on the IRS site about the ERC and Form 941X.
For clarifications or help, you can contact the IRS.

Deadline and Statute of Limitations

The deadline for filing Form 941 is generally the last day of the month following the end of each quarter. For example, for Q1 2021 (January-March), Form 941 is due by April 30, 2021. Nevertheless, if the employer deposited all taxes due in a given quarter on time, they may file Form 941 before the 10th day. Following the end of the quarter. For Q1 2021 (January-March), form 941 must be submitted by May 10, 2020, Are Employee Retention Credit Real

Form 941X must be filed within three years of the original filing date or two from the payment date, whichever comes later. For Q1 of 2020 (January through March), the deadline for Form 941 to be filed was April 30, 2020. If an employer filed Form 941 on April 30, 2020, and paid the tax on April 30, 2020, the deadline for filing Form 941-X is April 30, 2023. If an employee filed Form 941 April 30, 2020 and paid tax June 15, 2020 the deadline for submitting Form 941 X is June 15, 222.

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Conclusion

Employee Retention (ERC) Credit is an important tax benefit which can help employers that were affected by COVID-19 to retain their employees, and lessen the impact the pandemic had on their organizations or businesses.

The ERC is a refundable tax credit. It varies based on time, number of employees, and amount of wages and health insurance paid to eligible employees. The ERC can be claimed by filing Form 941 or Form 941-X with the IRS and reporting the qualified wages and health insurance costs and the amount of credit claimed for each quarter.

Don’t miss this chance to get a tax break if your employer meets the ERC criteria. The ERC has a time limit and deadline for claiming. Use the resources and tips provided in this article to ensure that you fill out your forms correctly and avoid common mistakes. You can also contact the IRS or a tax professional for assistance or clarification if needed.

The ERC is a great tool for both your business and employees. It can help your business or organization retain workers, maintain cash flow and recover from a pandemic. We hope that this article helped you to understand more about ERC and the claim process. We thank you for reading. Please stay safe.

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Are Employee Retention Credit Real

What is the ERC?

Employee Retention Credit – This tax credit is available to employers for keeping their employees employed during the COVID-19 epidemic.

It was created in March of 2020 by the CARES Act and later extended and amended by the CAA Act of December 2020 (Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021).

Who is eligible for the ERC?

Not everyone is eligible for the ERC. It is only available to employers who have retained employees and paid their wages to them between March 13, 2020, and December 31, 2021.

More details are available above. But here are some of the highlights.

A government order imposed a suspension (full or partial) on the business or organization due to COVID-19.
Their gross receipts for a calendar quarter in 2020 or 2021 were less than a percentage of their gross receipts for the same quarter in 2019.
The business is a startup that started operations after February 15, 2020, and has an average gross revenue of less than $1 million.

How much does the ERC cost?

The amount that an organization or company receives in ERC will depend on many factors.

One of the factors is the length of time the company has been in business, the number and type of employees it has, the amount that qualifies as wages, or the health insurance premiums paid to employees who are eligible. For a detailed explanation of ERC, you can read the article mentioned above.

How to claim the ERC?

To claim the ERC, an employer must file a federal employment tax reform or an adjusted employment tax return (Form 941-X) with the IRS.

Employers must submit quarterly reports detailing the amounts of the tax credit, the wages paid and the health insurance premiums that they have claimed to be reimbursed.

What is the deadline for submitting the ERC forms?

There are two different deadlines to file the ERC Forms: Form 941 (Form 941-X) and Form 941 (941).

Form 941 deadline is typically the last of the month following each quarter. The deadline for Forms 941-X, however, is usually three years after the date the original Form was completed. It is also possible to choose a date of two years following the date on which the tax was paid.