Employee Retention Credit For Sole Proprietorship

COVID-19’s pandemic caused unimaginable hardships to many organizations and businesses around the globe. Due to lockdowns and social distancing as well as health and safety measures, many employers have seen their revenues and expenses drop, while operations are disrupted.

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The ERC, which was originally enacted in 2020 by the CARES Act, was extended and modified later by subsequent legislation in both 2021 & 2023. 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? Employee Retention Credit For Sole Proprietorship

Employee Retention Credit (ERC), a refundable tax credits, is available for tax-exempt businesses or organizations with employees that were affected in any way 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 is designed to encourage employers to retain their employees and offer them health benefits in times of crisis.

The Main Features and Benefits

Credits are equal in percentage to the wages and insurance costs that employees who qualify for them have paid, but there is a maximum per employee.
The credit limit and percentage are dependent on the period of time for which you claim the credit. For 2020, the percent is 50%, and the limit is $5,000 for each employee per year. For 2021, the percentage is 70%, and the limit is $7,000 per employee per quarter. For 2023, there is a 70% percentage for the first 2 quarters followed by 40% for the second two quarters. There is a $10,000 limit per employee. Employee Retention Credit For Sole Proprietorship
The credit is fully refundable, which means that if it exceeds the employer’s payroll tax liability the excess amount will be returned to the employer.
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 are available by submitting an amended employment return (Form 951) or by reducing deposits for employment taxes in anticipation. Employers can also request an advance payment of the credit by filing Form 7200.

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Eligibility Criteria

To qualify as an employer for the Employee retention Credit (ERC), you must meet at least one of the two criteria below:

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
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.

A special rule is in place for businesses that have started operating after February 15, 2020, and whose average gross receipts per year are no more than one million dollars. These businesses can be eligible for ERC regardless of their revenue decline or suspension.

Business Suspension

A government order will either fully or partially suspend an organization or business if:

The order restricts the commerce, travel and group meetings that are prohibited by COVID-19
The order impacts the operations of a business or organization
The order will apply to any calendar month in 2020 or even 2021

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

Stay-at-home orders restricting non-essential business operations
Certain businesses have curfews that limit their hours of operations
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

An employer should consider the following factors to determine if an order from a government has suspended a business in its entirety or only partially.

The nature and extent of the order, and its impact on the operation of your business
The order’s duration, frequency, and alignment with the calendar quarters
The order’s impact on revenues and expenses

Revenue Decline

It is considered a significant decrease in gross revenue if a business has:

The gross receipts for any calendar quarter in 2020 were less than 50% of its gross receipts for the same quarter in 2019
The gross revenue for any quarter of 2021 was less than 80% that for the same period in 2019.

Gross receipts are the total amount that a business or organization has received or accrued from all sources, during its annual accounting period. Gross receipts can include:

Sales of goods & services
Dividends, rents, and royalties, as well as interest, are all examples of annuities.
Donations, contributions, grants and gifts Employee Retention Credit For Sole Proprietorship
Membership dues
Gross income from trades or businesses

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

It should use the same method of accounting, either cash or accrual, that it used for its federal income tax returns 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 of revenue that they reported on their federal income tax return in 2019

Recovery Startup Business

A recovery startup is a business:

Begun carrying on any business after February 15th, 2020
Has average annual gross receipts of no more than $1 million for the three-tax-year period ending with the tax year that precedes the calendar quarter for which the credit is determined

It does not matter if a business meets the criteria of revenue decline or business suspension, a recovery-startup business qualifies for the ERC. Recovery Startup Businesses are still subject to some restrictions and special rules.

The maximum credit per quarter will be $50,000
The credit is only applicable to wages paid for the third and fourth quarters of 2021
The credit has a cap of 250 million dollars for all startup businesses that are eligible.

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Credit Amounts Calculation

For different lengths of time, different types of employers and different amounts of ERC, the ERC has different rules. The ERC is affected by the following main factors:

How much business income dropped compared to 2019.
What number of employees did the employer have in 2019 and 2020/2021?
How much did the employer pay each employee in health insurance?

Employers must complete and send IRS forms to claim ERC. The forms have to show how much the employer paid to their employees and their health insurance and why they qualify for the ERC. The IRS will verify the forms, and then give the money to your employer. The employer may use the money in order to pay their employees’ health insurance premiums, or get refunds for their payroll tax.

The ERC won’t be around forever. It began in March 2019 and will finish in September 2020. The employer must claim the ERC prior to its expiration or becoming unavailable. The employer also has to use the money wisely and not waste it. Employee Retention Credit For Sole Proprietorship

The following information provides more details on the ERC credit and how it is calculated.

Time Period

In 2020, 2021, & 2022, different laws were passed to introduce, amend, and terminate the ERC. The credit amount depends on the period for which you claim it. The following table summarizes the key features and differences of the ERC 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 and type of employees can affect the definition and calculation for qualified wages and health care costs. An employer is considered a small or large employer depending on the time period and the number of full-time employees (FTEs) it had in 2019. The table below summarizes all the rules and thresholds that determine an employer’s size.

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 refer to wages paid during a period when the business is suspended or revenues are declining. The list of qualified wages includes tips, bonuses, commissions, and severance payments, as well as sick leave, family leave, severance, and other compensation. Qualified salaries also include the costs of providing health coverage to eligible workers, including premiums, copays, deductibles, and coinsurance.

The calculation and definition of health insurance and qualified wages are dependent on the size of the employer and the time period. The following table provides a summary of the rules for different scenarios. Employee Retention Credit For Sole Proprietorship

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 reports the quarterly federal tax liability of an employer, including income tax and Medicare taxes. The employer can also claim the ERC in Form 941 for future or current quarters. The employer can use Form 941 to:

Reduce the amount of taxes that the employer has to deposit with the IRS by the amount of the ERC
Employers can request a payment in advance if their ERC is higher than the taxes they are required to pay. Employee Retention Credit For Sole Proprietorship
Carry forward any excess credits to future quarters

The employer should:

Use the latest version 941 which reflects updates and changes in the ERC.
Follow the IRS instructions and worksheets for calculating the ERC and reporting it.
Use Line 1c to report on the health insurance and wages that eligible employees have received.
Use Line 13d for the credit claim amount per quarter
Line 13f is used to report any advance payment of credit received by the IRS
Use Line 24 to request a credit advance if necessary
Report any credit balance that may be carried forward into the next quarter using Line 25
Sign the form 941, and attach any supporting documents.

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

Use online services or electronic filing to submit Form 941 more quickly and securely
You can find updates, FAQs, and more information on the IRS site about Form 941, the ERC.
You can also contact a tax expert or the IRS for clarifications and assistance if you need it.

Form 941-X

The Form 941 X is used for corrections and adjustments to a Form 941. The Form 941X allows the employer retroactively to claim ERC for previous quarters. Form 941-X can be used by the employer to: Employee Retention Credit For Sole Proprietorship

Claim a credit or refund for the taxes you overpaid by claiming ERC
Report any additional wages or health insurance costs that are paid to employees who are eligible but not reported on Form 951.
Correct any errors or omissions you find on Form 941, which may affect your credit claim.

The employer should:

Use the latest form 941X that reflects changes to laws that are applicable to the ERC.
Follow the IRS instructions and worksheets for calculating the ERC and reporting it.
Use the Part 2 to indicate on which lines you are correcting or adjusting Form 941
Use Part 3 to explain why Form 941 is being corrected or adjusted
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 the form 941-X, date it and include any documents or schedules that you wish to attach.

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

File a separate Form 941-X for each quarter that is being corrected or adjusted Employee Retention Credit For Sole Proprietorship
You should fill out Form 941/X as quickly as possible after you have made an adjustment or discovered an error.
The IRS website has updated FAQs on the ERC, Form 941 X, and updates to the IRS website.
Need clarification? Contact an IRS agent or tax professional.

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. If an employer has made all the required deposits for the quarter in a timely manner, they can file Forms 941 on the 10th of the second month. After the end of the quarterly period. For example, Q1 2020 (January to March) requires that Form 941 be returned by May 10, 2021. Employee Retention Credit For Sole Proprietorship

The deadline for filing Form 941-X is generally three years from the date that the original Form 941 was filed or two years from the date that the tax was paid, whichever is later. For Q1 of 2020 (January through March), the deadline for Form 941 to be filed was April 30, 2020. If the employer has filed Forms 941 and paid tax by April 30th 2020, they have until April 30th 2023 to submit Form 941X. If an employer filed Form 941 on April 30, 2020, and paid the tax on June 15, 2020, the deadline for filing Form 941-X 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.

This tax benefit is available to employers who meet the ERC’s eligibility criteria. The ERC will not be available indefinitely, and it has a set deadline and statute of limitations. You should file your forms as soon as possible and use the tips and resources provided in this article to fill them out correctly and avoid common errors. You can also contact the IRS or a tax professional for assistance or clarification if needed.

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

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Employee Retention Credit For Sole Proprietorship

What is ERC?

Employee Retention Credit: This is a credit that employers can claim if they retained employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CARES Act was passed in March 2020. It was amended and extended in December 2020 by the CAA Act (Consolidated Appropriations Act) and in March 2021 by the ARPA Act (American Rescue Plan Act of 2021).

Are all ERC applicants eligible?

Not everyone is eligible for the ERC. Employers who retained their employees and paid them wages between March 13, 2020, and December 31, 2021, are eligible.

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

A government order imposed a suspension (full or partial) on the business or organization due to COVID-19.
Their gross receipts in a quarter of 2020 or 2021 are less than the percentage of their gross revenue in the same quarter of 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 worth?

The amount of ERC that a company will receive depends on a number of factors.

Among these factors are the time period, employee count, amount of qualifying wages and health insurance cost paid to eligible workers. If you want a more detailed explanation, read the above article.

How to claim the ERC?

For an employer to claim the ERC, they must file either a federal reform of employment tax or an amended employment tax return (941-X).

Employers are required to report each quarter the total amount claimed as a credit and the wages and insurance premiums paid by eligible employees.

When is the deadline to submit the ERC form?

The deadline for filing the ERC forms is different for Form 941 and Form 941-X.

Form 941 deadline is typically the last of the month following each quarter. Meanwhile, the deadline for Form 941-X is generally three years from the date that the original Form 941 was filled. It can also be from two years from the date that the tax was paid, with the later date being the more preferred one.