Inflation Reduction Act Employee Retention Credit

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented challenges and hardships for many businesses and organizations around the world. 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 is a program that was introduced by the CARES Act of 2020. Subsequent legislation was passed in 2021 and in 2023 to extend and modify it. This article will provide an overview of the ERC and its workings, as well as how to apply for it in different time periods.

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? Inflation Reduction Act Employee Retention Credit

Employee Retention Credit is a tax credit that can be refunded to businesses and tax-exempt organizations who had employees 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 is designed to encourage employers to retain their employees and offer them health benefits in times of crisis.

Main Features and Advantages

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 percentage and the maximum credit vary depending on how long the credit can be claimed. For 2020, the percentage is 50%, and the limit is $5,000 per employee for the entire year. For 2021, the percentage is 70%, and the limit is $7,000 per employee per quarter. For 2023, the percentage will be 70% for the two first quarters and 40% for the two last quarters. The limit per employee per quarter is $10,000. Inflation Reduction Act Employee Retention Credit
The credit will be fully refundable if its amount exceeds that of the employer’s payroll taxes.
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.
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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Eligibility Criteria

In order to qualify for Employee Recruitment Credit (ERC), a company must meet the following 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
The employer’s gross receipts for a calendar quarter in 2020 or 2021 were less than 50% (for 2020) or 80% (for 2021) of its gross receipts for the same quarter 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 qualify for ERC despite business suspensions or revenue decreases.

Business Suspension

A business or organization is considered fully or partially suspended by a government order if:

The order limits commerce, travel, or group meetings due to COVID-19
The order has a direct impact on the operations of an organization or business
The order applies to any calendar quarter in 2020 or 2021

Some examples of government orders that can cause a business suspension are:

Stay-at-home orders prohibiting the operation of non-essential businesses
Businesses are restricted in their operating hours by curfews
Limits to the number of clients or customers that a company can serve
Travel restrictions or bans that impact the ability of an organization to transport goods and 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 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

A significant decline in gross revenues is experienced by a business or organization 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 of any quarter in calendar 2021 were below 80% of the gross receipts in the same quarter for 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 include the following:

Sales of goods and Services
Dividends (rents), royalties and interest
Donations, contributions, grants and gifts Inflation Reduction Act Employee Retention Credit
Dues and fees for membership
Gross profits from trades and businesses

Employers must use the following formulas to calculate gross receipts and compare them between quarters.

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 of income that it reported on its federal income tax return for 2019

Recovery Startup Business

A recovery startup is a business:

After February 15, 2020, you can start any business or trade.
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

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 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 maximum credit available for startup businesses is $250 million.

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Credit Amount Calculation

ERCs have different rules and amounts depending on the length of time and type of employer. The ERC is affected primarily by:

How much business income dropped compared to 2019.
How many employees an employer had in 2019, 2020/2021 or whether they worked, or did not work during the pandemic
How much each employee received from their employer and how they were covered by health insurance in the pandemic

The employer has to fill out some forms and send them to the IRS to claim the ERC. The employer must provide proof of how much they paid their employees for health insurance as well as the ERC. The IRS will check the forms and give the money to the 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.

The ERC is not available forever. It started in March 2020 and will end 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. Inflation Reduction Act Employee Retention Credit

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

Time Period

The ERC was introduced, amended, and terminated by different laws 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 of employees affects the definition and calculation of qualified wages and health insurance costs for eligible employees. The size of an employer depends on its number of FTEs and the time period. The following table summarizes the thresholds and rules for determining the employer size for each time 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 wages also include the cost of providing health insurance to eligible employees, such as premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and co-insurance.

The employer size, the time period and the calculation of the qualified wage and health insurance cost will affect the calculation. Table 1 summarizes and gives examples of rules in various scenarios. Inflation Reduction Act 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 Credit

For the Internal Revenue Service to grant the Employee Retention credit (ERC), employers must file either a federal tax return for employment (Form 941), or an amended tax return for employment (Form941-X). The employer must declare the wages and health insurance premiums paid to eligible employees, as well as the credit amount claimed each quarter.

Form 941

Form 941 is a quarterly tax return that the employer must file to show his federal tax liabilities. This includes income taxes, Medicare tax and Social Security taxes. Form 941 allows employers to claim ERCs for current or future quarterly periods. Form 941 allows the employer to do:

ERC reduces taxes that employers have to deposit at the IRS.
Employers can request a payment in advance if their ERC is higher than the taxes they are required to pay. Inflation Reduction Act Employee Retention Credit
You can carry forward any credit balance to subsequent quarters

The employer should:

Use the latest Form 941, which reflects all the updates and changes made to the ERC by new laws.
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
Use Line 13d for the credit claim amount per quarter
Line 13f should be used to report any advance payments made by the IRS.
If you need to receive an advance payment, use Line 24.
Use Line 25 to report any excess credit that can be carried forward to subsequent quarters
Sign and date Form 941 and attach any supporting documents or schedules

You can find some helpful tips on how to fill out Form 941 here:

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.
Contact the IRS or a tax professional for assistance or clarification if needed

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. The employer can use Form 941-X to: Inflation Reduction Act Employee Retention Credit

Claim a refund or credit for overpaid taxes due to claiming the ERC
Report additional qualified earnings and health benefits paid to eligible employee that weren’t reported on Form 941.
Correct any errors or omissions you find on Form 941, which may affect your credit claim.

Employers should avoid these common mistakes when filling out Form 941 X and ensure that they are filled out correctly.

Use the latest Form 941-X which reflects all the updates and changes made to the ERC by new laws.
Follow the IRS instructions and worksheets for calculating the ERC and reporting it.
Use Part 2 of Form 941 to indicate which lines are being amended or corrected.
Use Part 3 for explaining why form 941 has been corrected or adjusted
Use Line 24 to declare any additional qualified wages or health insurance costs paid by eligible employees.
Use Line 25 to report any additional amount of credit claimed for each quarter
Use Line 26 when reporting any refund or credit that you have requested as a result of claiming your ERC
Attach any supporting documents and schedules to Form 941-X.

Some tips and resources for filling out Form 941-X are:

You must file a separate 941X form for each quarter you are correcting or adjusting. Inflation Reduction Act Employee Retention Credit
If you discover an error on Form 941 or make an adjustment, file Form 941X as soon as you can.
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 last day to file Form 941 usually falls on the last month after the end of each quarterly period. For example, Form 941 for Q1 of 2021 (January to March) is due April 30, 2020. 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. The following quarter. For Q1 2021 (January-March), form 941 must be submitted by May 10, 2020, Inflation Reduction Act Employee Retention Credit

The deadline for submitting Form 941X depends on the time period. It is generally three or two years, depending on the date when the original Form 941 has been filed. For example, for Q1 2020 (January-March), Form 941 was due by 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 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 Tax Credit (ERC), is a valuable financial benefit that helps employers to keep their employees employed and reduces the impact COVID-19 has on their organization or business.

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.

If you are an employer who meets the eligibility criteria for the ERC, you should not miss this opportunity to take advantage of this tax benefit. The ERC is not available forever and has a deadline and a statute of limitations for claiming it. Use the resources and tips provided in this article to ensure that you fill out your forms correctly and avoid common mistakes. If needed, you can also reach out to the IRS or a professional tax advisor for clarification or help.

ERC can have a significant impact on your business, 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. Thank you for reading, and stay safe.

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Inflation Reduction Act Employee Retention Credit

What is the ERC?

Employee Retention Credit is an employer tax credit available to employers who kept their employees on payroll during COVID-19.

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).

Can everyone apply for ERC?

ERC isn’t available to everyone. Employers only eligible for the ERC are those who have retained and paid wages to their employees between March 14, 2020 and Dec 31, 2021.

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

A government order has suspended the business or organization (wholly or partially) due to COVID-19.
The gross receipts of a calendar quarter for 2020 or 2021 were less than a percent of the gross receipts from a similar quarter in 2019.
These businesses are recovery startups that have been in operation since February 15, 2020. They also generate gross revenues of no more than $1 million on average per year.

How much does the ERC cost?

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

Some of these factors include the time period, the number of employees, the number of qualified wages, and health insurance costs paid to eligible employees. For a detailed explanation of ERC, you can read the article mentioned above.

How to claim 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 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 ERC’s deadline?

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

The deadline for Form 941 is usually the last day in the month after the end of every quarter. While the deadline for the Form 941-X will be three years after you filled out the original Form 941. This can also be up to two years, based on the date when the tax is paid.