Employee Retention Credit Employee Leasing

COVID-19 has caused hardships and unprecedented challenges for businesses and organizations all over the world. Many employers have faced reduced revenues, increased expenses, and disrupted operations due to lockdowns, social distancing, and health and safety measures.

In order to help employers retain employees and offer them health benefits in this tough time, the U.S. Government has introduced the Employee retention credit (ERC), which is a tax credit refundable that can be used by eligible employers to offset some payroll costs.

The ERC, which was originally enacted in 2020 by the CARES Act, was extended and modified later by subsequent legislation in both 2021 & 2023. This article will explain the ERC, how it functions, and how you can claim it.

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 Employee Retention Credit? Employee Retention Credit Employee Leasing

Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERC), is a refundable tax credit for organizations and businesses with employees who have been affected by COVID-19. The ERC is a refundable tax credit that was created by 2020’s CARES Act and has been extended and changed by subsequent legislations of 2021 and 2023. The ERC encourages employers to maintain their workers and to provide health benefits to them during the crisis.

Main Features and Advantages

The credit is a percentage of wages and health insurance premiums paid by eligible employees. There are limits per employee, per quarter.
The percentage and limit will vary depending on when the credit is claimed. 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, there will be a 70 percent percentage for the initial two quarters of the year and a 40 percent percentage for the last two. There will also be a limit of $10,000 per employee each quarter. Employee Retention Credit Employee Leasing
The credit is fully refundable, meaning that if the amount of the credit exceeds the employer’s payroll tax liability, the excess will be paid to the employer as a refund.
Employers who have experienced a significant drop in gross receipts or a complete or partial suspension of their operations as a result of a government order relating to COVID-19 can claim the credit. The credit can be claimed by employers who have been classified as recovery startups only until 2023.
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. By submitting Form 7020, employers can request an early payment of their credit.

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Eligibility Criteria

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

A government order suspended the employer’s organization or business in full or part due to COVID-19 for a calendar quarter of 2020 or 2021
Gross receipts of an employer for a quarter calendar in 2020 or in 2021 are less than half (for 2020) and 80% (for 2021) their gross receipts from the same period in 2019.

There is also a special rule that applies to recovery startups, which are businesses that started operations after February 15th 2020 with gross receipts no higher than $1,000,000 on average. 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 prohibits travel, group meetings, and commerce due to COVID-19
The order will affect the operation of the business or the organization
Order applies to any calendar year in 2020 or 21

Some examples of orders from the government that could cause a business to be suspended are:

Stay-at-home orders that restrict non-essential businesses from operating
Certain businesses are subject to curfews which limit their hours of operation
Limits to the number of clients or customers that a company can serve
Travel bans or restrictions that affect the ability of a business to transport goods or services

To determine if the business was partially or fully suspended by an official order, employers must consider:

The nature and extent of the order, and its impact on the operation of your business
The length, frequency, and timing of the order in relation to the quarters of the year.
The magnitude and impact of the order upon the revenue and expenses of a business

Revenue Decline

A business or organization is considered to have experienced a significant decline in gross receipts if:

The gross receipts from any quarter in 2020 is less than 50% its gross receipts from the same calendar quarter in 2019.
The gross receipts for any calendar quarter in 2021 were less than 80% of its gross receipts for the same quarter in 2019

Gross receipts are the total sums that an organization or a business has accrued or received from all its sources in a given accounting year, without any deductions. Gross receipts include the following:

Sales of goods and services
Dividends (rents), royalties and interest
Donations, contributions, grants and gifts Employee Retention Credit Employee Leasing
Membership fees and dues
Gross profit from business or trade

To compare gross revenues for different quarters an employer can use:

The same method for accounting (cash-based or accrual-based) that was used to file the federal income Tax return for 2019
Use the same calendar quarters as it did for its federal employment tax return (Form 941 ) for 2019 and 2021/2022
The same sources as reported in the federal tax return for 2019

Recovery Startup Business

A startup that is in recovery can be defined as

You must have started your business after the 15th of February 2020
Have average annual gross income of no more than $1 million over the three-year period ending the tax year before the calendar quarter in which the credit is determined

The ERC is available to a recovery startup business regardless of whether or not it meets the criteria for business suspension or revenue decrease. Recovery startups are not exempt from certain rules and restrictions.

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

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Credit Amounts and Calculation

There are different ERC rules and amounts for different employers and periods of time. The ERC is affected by the following main factors:

How much the employer’s business was affected by the pandemic, either by having to close or reduce operations due to government orders or by having a big drop in income compared to 2019
Employer’s number of employees in 2019 or 2021, and whether the employee worked or not.
What the employer paid each employee for their health insurance and during the pandemic

Employers must complete and send IRS forms to claim ERC. The employer must provide proof of how much they paid their employees for health insurance as well as the ERC. The IRS will verify the forms, and then give the money to your employer. The employer can then use the money for paying their employees, their health insurance and/or to receive refunds or credits on their payroll tax.

ERCs are not available forever. The ERC started in March 2020 and ends in September 2022. The employer has to claim the ERC before it expires or becomes unavailable. Employers must also use the money well and not waste it. Employee Retention Credit Employee Leasing

Here is more information about the ERC and its calculation.

Time Period

Different laws introduced, amended and terminated the ERC in 2020, 2021 and 2022. The credit amount depends on the period for which you claim it. The following table summarizes and compares the ERC’s main features for each 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

The Number of Employees

The number affects the calculation of qualified wages for employees and their health insurance costs. The size of an employer depends on its number of FTEs 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 & Health Insurance Costs

Qualified Wages are wages that eligible employees receive during periods of suspension or decline in revenue. Other forms of compensation are also included in qualified wages, such as tips, bonuses and commissions. Qualified salaries also include the costs of providing health coverage to eligible workers, including premiums, copays, deductibles, and coinsurance.

The definition and calculation of qualified wages and health insurance costs depend on the employer size and the time period. Table 1 summarizes and gives examples of rules in various scenarios. Employee Retention Credit Employee Leasing

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

For an employer to claim the Employee retention credit (ERC), they must submit a federal employment return (Form 951) or a revised employment tax report (Form 941X) to the Internal Revenue Service. The employer will need to declare the qualified wages paid and the health insurance expenses paid for eligible employees. They must also report the credit claimed.

Form 941

Form 941 is used to report the employer’s quarterly federal tax liability, including income tax, social security tax, and Medicare tax. Form 941 allows employers to claim ERCs for current or future quarterly periods. Form 941 can be used by the employer to:

ERCs can be used to reduce the amount of tax that an employer must pay to the IRS.
The employer can request an advanced payment of the ERC credit if it exceeds taxes that they have to deposit. Employee Retention Credit Employee Leasing
You can carry forward any credit balance to subsequent quarters

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

Use the latest version of Form 941 that reflects the changes and updates made by the laws that affect the ERC
Follow the IRS instructions and worksheets for calculating the ERC and reporting it.
Use Line 11c for the amount of qualified wages and health benefits paid to eligible employees
Report the amount of credit claimed each quarter using Line 13d.
Use Line 13f for any advance payment received from 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 attach any supporting documents or schedules

Here are some tips and resources to help you fill out Form 941:

Use electronic filing services (efile) and online services to submit the Form 941 faster, more securely
The IRS website has updated FAQs on the ERC and Form 941.
Contact the IRS or a tax professional for assistance or clarification if needed

Form 941-X

Form 941-X is used to correct errors or make adjustments on a previously filed Form 941. Form 941 X also allows for the employer to claim ERC retroactively. The employer can use the Form 941 X to: Employee Retention Credit Employee Leasing

Claim the ERC to get a refund of taxes that you have overpaid.
Report additional qualified earnings and health benefits paid to eligible employee that weren’t reported on Form 941.
Correct any mistakes or omissions made on Form 941 that affect the amount of credit claimed

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

Use the latest version 941-X to reflect the updated laws and regulations that impact the ERC.
For calculating and reporting your ERC, follow the IRS’s instructions and worksheets.
Use Part 2 for indicating which lines of the Form 941 need to be corrected or adjusted
Use Part 3 of Form 941 to explain why it is being amended or corrected
Use Line 24 to declare any additional qualified wages or health insurance costs paid by eligible employees.
Use Line 25 for any additional credit claimed each quarter.
Use Line 26 for any refunds or credits due to ERC claims.
Sign the form 941-X, date it and include any documents or schedules that you wish to attach.

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

You must file a separate 941X form for each quarter you are correcting or adjusting. Employee Retention Credit Employee Leasing
After making a correction or finding an error, you should file Form 941X.
Check the IRS website for updates, FAQs, and guidance on Form 941-X and the ERC
Contact the IRS or a tax professional for assistance or clarification if needed

Deadline and Statute of Limitations

The deadline for submitting Form 941 generally falls on the last calendar day of the following month. For example, for Q1 2021 (January-March), Form 941 is due by April 30, 2021. However, if an employer made timely deposits of all taxes due for a quarter, it can file Form 941 by the 10th day of the second month. After the end of the quarterly period. For example, for Q1 2021 (January-March), Form 941 is due by May 10, 2021, Employee Retention Credit Employee Leasing

Form 941X must be filed within three years of the original filing date or two from the payment date, whichever comes later. For Q1 2020, (January-March), the Form 941 must be filed by April 30th 2020. If an employer submitted Forms 941 on 30 April 2020 and the tax was paid on 30 April 2020, it is now April 2023 before they can file Forms 941-X. If an employers filed Forms 941 and paid taxes on June 15, 2019, the deadline is June 15, 2022.

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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 can be claimed by filing Form 941 or Form 941-X with the IRS and reporting the qualified wages and costs of health insurance paid to eligible workers. The ERC credit can be claimed with IRS Forms 941 or 941X by reporting to them the qualified health insurance and wages costs as well as the amount claimed each quarter.

Do not miss out on this opportunity if you’re an employer that meets the ERC eligibility criteria. The ERC does not last forever. It has a deadline, and there is a statute of limitations for claiming the ERC. The forms should be filed as soon as you can. You can use the resources and advice provided in this post to avoid common mistakes and fill them out correctly. You can contact the IRS for help or clarification, or you could consult a tax expert.

The ERC can make a big difference for your business or organization and your employees. It can be used to help retain your employees, maintain your cash flow, and recover in the event of a pandemic. We hope this article has helped you understand more about the ERC and how to claim it. Thank you for reading. Stay safe.

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Employee Retention Credit Employee Leasing

What is the ERC?

The Employee Retention Credit is a tax credit for employers who retained their employees in their payroll during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CARES Act, passed by Congress in March of this year, was amended in December of that year by the CAA Act. In March 2021, the ARPA Act (American Rescue Plan Act of 2021), was extended.

Who is eligible for the ERC?

ERCs are not available to all. The ERC is only available to employers that have paid wages to employees between March 13, 2020, and December 31, 2021.

You can read more about the criteria here. Here are some highlights.

The business or organization was suspended (fully or partially) by government order due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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.

What is the ERC rate?

The amount of ERC a company or organization receives will depend on several factors.

Among these factors are the time period, employee count, amount of qualifying wages and health insurance cost paid to eligible workers. To learn more about how ERCs are calculated, please read the article.

How do I claim my ERC?

To receive the ERC, employers must file with the IRS a Form 941-X (revised employment tax returns) or a Federal Employment Tax Reform.

The employer must report the qualified wages and health insurance costs paid to eligible employees and the amount of credit claimed for each quarter.

When is ERC’s deadline?

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

For Form 941 is generally the last day of the month following the end of each quarter. In contrast, the deadline to submit Form 941 X is generally set at three years since the date of the original 941. This can also be up to two years, based on the date when the tax is paid.