How Long Do I Have To Amend 941 For Employee Retention Credit

Many businesses and organizations have faced unprecedented hardships and challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many employers have faced reduced revenues, increased expenses, and disrupted operations due to lockdowns, social distancing, and health and safety measures.

To help employers keep their employees, and to provide them with health insurance during these difficult times, the U.S. federal government has created the Employee Retention credit (ERC), an refundable tax credits that can offset some of payroll costs for employers who qualify.

The ERC was first enacted by the CARES Act in 2020 and was later extended and modified by subsequent legislation in 2021 and 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 Employee Retention Credit? How Long Do I Have To Amend 941 For Employee Retention Credit

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, created in 2020 by the CARES Act, was then extended and modified through subsequent legislation in both 2021-2023. The ERC was created to encourage employers in crisis to keep workers on their payrolls and provide them health insurance.

Main Features and Benefits

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, 50% of the employees will be eligible for the credit, with a maximum limit of $5,000 per employee. For 2021, it is 70%. The limit is $7,000 per quarter per employee. 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. How Long Do I Have To Amend 941 For Employee Retention Credit
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 may claim the credit if their gross receipts have declined significantly or they have had to suspend operations in whole or part due to a COVID-19-related government order. Employers who are considered to be recovery startup businesses may also claim this credit, but only for 2023.
The credit may be claimed by filing a modified employment tax return (941-X), or by reducing the employment tax deposits to prepare for the credit. By submitting Form 7020, employers can request an early payment of their credit.

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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 company or organization has been suspended, either fully or partly, by an order of the government due to COVID-19 at a particular calendar quarter in 2020/2021
The gross receipts of the employer for a calendar-quarter in 2020 or 2020 were less than 50 percent (for 2020), or 80 percent (for 2021), of their gross receipts during the same calendar quarter in 2019.

Additionally, there is an additional rule that only applies to startups who began operating on or after February 15, 2021, and have gross receipts totaling no more than $1.0 million. These businesses are eligible for the ERC, regardless of whether their business has been suspended or if revenue has declined.

Business Suspension

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

The order prohibits travel, group meetings, and commerce due to COVID-19
The order affects the operations of the business or organization
The order applies to all calendar quarters in 2020 and 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
Curfews that limit the hours of operation for certain businesses
Limits on the capacity of a business that limit how many customers or clients it 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 duration, frequency of the orders and their alignment with the four quarters calendar.
The order’s impact on revenues and expenses

Revenue Decline

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

The gross revenue for any calendar-quarter in 2020 was less than 50 percent of the gross revenues for the same period in 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 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 can include:

Sales of goods & services
Interest, dividends rents royalties and annuities
Gifts, donations, and contributions How Long Do I Have To Amend 941 For Employee Retention Credit
Membership fees and dues
Gross revenue from businesses or trades

To calculate and compare gross receipts for different quarters, an employer must use:

The same method of account (cash, accrual or accrual) was used in filing the federal income tax return.
The same calendar year quarters that it used to file its federal employment tax returns (Form 941) for 2019 and 2020/2021
It is the same income sources that were reported on the federal income tax returns for 2019.

Recovery Startup Business

A recovery startup is a business:

Start any new business or occupation after February 15, 2019,
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.

If a business is in recovery, it can still qualify for ERC even if the business has been suspended or its revenue has declined. 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 maximum credit available for startup businesses is $250 million.

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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 ERC is affected by the following main factors:

How much of the employer’s income was affected in 2019 by the pandemic.
The number of employees that the employer has in 2019 or 2020/2021 and whether or not they worked during the pandemic
What the employer paid each employee for their health insurance and during the pandemic

To receive the ERC, employers must submit forms to the IRS. The employer must provide proof of how much they paid their employees for health insurance as well as the ERC. The IRS will examine the forms to determine if the employer is eligible and then pay him the money. The money can be used by the employer to pay for health insurance, to pay employees, or refunds on payroll taxes.

The ERC will not be available indefinitely. The ERC started in March 2020 and ends in September 2022. The employer is required to claim ERCs before they expire, or are no longer available. Employers must also use the money well and not waste it. How Long Do I Have To Amend 941 For Employee Retention Credit

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 varies depending on the time period for which it is claimed. 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

Number of Employees

The number and type of employees can affect the definition and calculation for qualified wages and health care costs. Employers are classified as small or large employers based on their number of full-time workers (FTEs), and the period in which they were employed. 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)

Earnings and Costs of Health Insurance

Qualified Wages are wages that eligible employees receive during periods of suspension or decline in revenue. The list of qualified wages includes tips, bonuses, commissions, and severance payments, as well as sick leave, family leave, severance, and other compensation. Qualified wage also includes the cost of health insurance for eligible employees. This may include premiums, deductibles, co-pays, or co-insurance.

The definition and calculation of qualified wages and health insurance costs depend on the employer size and the time period. This table summarises the rules and provides examples for various scenarios. How Long Do I Have To Amend 941 For Employee Retention Credit

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

Form 941

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

ERC reduces the amount that employers must deposit with the IRS in order to pay taxes.
The employer can request an advanced payment of the ERC credit if it exceeds taxes that they have to deposit. How Long Do I Have To Amend 941 For Employee Retention Credit
You can carry forward any credit balance to subsequent quarters

The employer should:

Use the latest version 941 which reflects updates and changes in the ERC.
Use the IRS worksheets and instructions to calculate and report the ERC
Use Line 11c for the amount of qualified wages and health benefits paid to eligible employees
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 an advance payment of the credit if needed
Report any credit balance that may be carried forward into the next quarter using Line 25
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
Updates, FAQs, and guidance about Form 941, the ERC, and other IRS forms can be found on the IRS website.
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. The employer can also claim the ERC retroactively by using Form 941X. Form 941-X can be used by the employer to: How Long Do I Have To Amend 941 For Employee Retention Credit

Claim a refund or credit for overpaid taxes due to claiming the ERC
Report additional qualified wages and health insurance costs paid to eligible employees that were not reported on Form 941
Correct any mistakes or omissions made on Form 941 that affect the amount of credit claimed

Employers can avoid common mistakes by filling in Form 941X correctly.

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 to explain why Form 941 is being corrected or adjusted
Line 24 should be used to record any additional health insurance and wages paid to employees who qualify.
Use Line 25 for any additional credit claimed each quarter.
Use Line 26 to report any refund or credit requested due to claiming the ERC
Sign and date Form 941-X and attach any supporting documents or schedules

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

Filter a separate Form 941/X for every quarter that needs to be corrected or adjusted How Long Do I Have To Amend 941 For Employee Retention Credit
File Form 941-X as soon as possible after discovering an error or making an 0adjustment on Form 941
Visit the IRS website to get the latest updates, FAQs, and guidance regarding Form 941-X, the ERC, and other forms.
If you need clarification or assistance, contact the IRS or an accountant.

Deadline and Statute of Limitations

The deadline to submit Form 941 is usually the last day in the month following each quarter. For example for Q1 (2021) (January – March), Form 941 should be submitted by April 30, 2019. The employer can still file Form 941 if they have deposited their taxes on time. The end of the quarter. Form 941 for the first quarter of 2021 (January – March) is due on May 10, 2021. How Long Do I Have To Amend 941 For Employee Retention Credit

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 employee filed Form 941 in April 2020 and paid their tax in April 2020, the deadline to file the Form 941 X is April 30 2023. If an employer files Form 941 in April 2020 and pays the tax on June 15 2020, they have until June 15 2022 to file Form 941.

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Conclusion

Employee Retention credit (ERC), a valuable benefit under tax law, can help employers who have been affected by COVID-19 keep their staff on payroll and minimize the impact of pandemic.

The ERC is a refundable tax credit that varies depending on the time period, the number of employees, and the amount of qualified wages and health insurance costs paid to eligible employees. You can claim the ERC by submitting Form 941 to the IRS. This form will ask you for the number of employees, the amount paid in qualified wages and insurance costs each quarter, and how much credit is being claimed.

Do not miss out on this opportunity if you’re an employer that meets the ERC eligibility criteria. The ERC is not available forever and has a deadline and a statute of limitations for claiming it. It is important to file your forms quickly and correctly. This article provides tips and resources that will help you 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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How Long Do I Have To Amend 941 For Employee Retention Credit

What is an ERC?

Employee Retention Credit (ERC) is a tax incentive for employers that retained their employees on their payrolls during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The CARES Act created the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 in March 2021. Later, the CAA (Consolidated Appropriations Act), in December 2020, was amended and expanded by ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act of 2021), in March 2021.

Who is eligible for the ERC?

ERC isn’t available to everyone. It is only available to employers who have retained employees and paid their wages to them between March 13, 2020, and December 31, 2021.

The criteria for eligibility is also listed above. For the highlights, please see:

A government-issued order temporarily or permanently suspended the organization or business due to COVID-19.
Their gross revenues for a quarter calendar in 2020 or in 2021 were lower than a percentage compared to their gross revenues for the same period in 2019.
It is a recovery-startup business that has been operating since after February 15, 2020. Their average annual gross receipts are no more than one million dollars.

What is the ERC rate?

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

These factors include time, the number of employees and the amount of wages that qualify. They also include health insurance costs for eligible employees. 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 submit a federal employment reform (Form 941)-X or a revised employment tax return to the IRS.

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 the deadline to file the ERC Forms

The deadlines for filing ERC forms for Forms 941 and form 941 X are different.

The last day for Form 941 in most cases is the last month following the end each quarter. In contrast, the deadline to submit Form 941 X is generally set at three years since the date of the original 941. The deadline can be two years after the date the tax was paid. However, the latter date is preferred.