Is Department Of Employee Retention Credit Legit

COVID-19’s pandemic caused unimaginable hardships to many organizations and businesses around the globe. Many employers have experienced reduced revenues, higher expenses, and disruptions to their operations because of lockdowns, distancing from social media, and health-and-safety measures.

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

The ERC has been in place since 2020 when the CARES Act was passed. Later, in 2021 and again in 2023, it was modified and extended by new legislation. This article will explain what the ERC is, how it works, and how to claim it for different time periods and eligibility criteria.

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? Is Department Of Employee Retention Credit Legit

The Employee Retention Credit (ERC) is a refundable tax credit for businesses and tax-exempt organizations that had employees and were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The ERC has been created by the CARES Act for 2020. It was further extended and modified with subsequent legislation in 2021, 2023. The ERC’s goal is to encourage employers during a crisis to continue to employ their workers, and to offer them health coverage.

Main Features and Benefits

Credits are equal to a percent of the qualified wages and costs for health insurance paid to eligible employees up to a limit per employee each quarter.
The percentage and the maximum credit vary depending on how long the credit can be claimed. For 2020, the percent is 50%, and the limit is $5,000 for each employee per year. For 2021, it is 70%. The limit is $7,000 per quarter per employee. 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. Is Department Of Employee Retention Credit Legit
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. In addition, employers who qualify as recovery-startup businesses for 2023 can also claim the credits.
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. The credit can be requested in advance by employers using Form 7200.

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Eligibility Criteria

To qualify for the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), an employer must meet one of the following two main criteria:

A government order has suspended or halted the business or organization of an employer due to COVID-19 in a calendar year 2020 or 2021.
Employer’s gross receipts in a calendar quarter of 2020 or 2021 was less than 50% or 80% of the gross receipts in 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 can qualify for the ERC regardless of business suspension or revenue decline.

Business Suspension

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

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

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

Stay-at-home orders that restrict non-essential businesses from operating
Curfews are restrictions on the hours that certain businesses can operate
Capacity limits that reduce the number of customers or clients that can be served by a business
Travel restrictions or travel bans that limit the ability of businesses to transport products or services

To determine whether an employer’s business was suspended fully or partially by a government directive, the employer must:

The nature and extent of the order, and its impact on the operation of your business
The length and frequency of your order and the way it corresponds to the calendar quarters
The order’s impact on revenues and expenses

Revenue Drop

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 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 & services
Rents, dividends, and annuities are examples of income streams that include interest, dividends.
Donations, contributions, grants and gifts Is Department Of Employee Retention Credit Legit
Membership fees and dues
Gross profit from business or trade

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

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

Recovery Startup Business

The recovery startup business is one that:

After February 15, 2020, you can start any business or trade.
The average annual gross receipts for the three tax years ending in the year preceding the quarter for which credit is calculated cannot exceed $1 million

A recovery startup business can qualify for the ERC regardless of whether it meets the criteria of business suspension or revenue decline. Recovery Startup Businesses are still subject to some restrictions and special rules.

Maximum credit per quarter: $50,000
Only wages paid during the third and fourth quarters in 2021 are eligible for this credit
Credits for recovery startups are subject to a maximum of $250 million.

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Credit Amount and Calculation

ERCs have different rules and amounts depending on the length of time and type of employer. The main factors that affect the ERC are:

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
How many employees the employer had in 2019 or 2020/2021, and whether they worked or not during the pandemic
How much each employee received from their employer and how they were covered by health insurance in the pandemic

To receive the ERC, employers must submit forms to the IRS. 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 review the forms and pay the money back to the employer. The money can be used by the employer to pay for health insurance, to pay employees, or refunds on payroll taxes.

The ERC won’t be around forever. The ERC started in March 2020 and ends in September 2022. The employer must claim ERC before the expiration date or when it becomes unavailable. The employer should also make sure to not waste the money. Is Department Of Employee Retention Credit Legit

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

Time Period

The ERC was implemented, amended, or terminated by various laws in 2020. Credit amounts vary depending on when they are claimed. 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

The Number of Employees

The number and type of employees can affect the definition and calculation for qualified wages and health care costs. The size of an employer depends on its number of FTEs and the time period. The following table summarizes rules and thresholds to determine employer 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 & Health Insurance Costs

Qualified wages include wages paid to eligible workers during a business suspension or revenue decrease. Qualified wages include tips, commissions, bonuses, severance pay, sick leave pay, family leave pay, and other forms of 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. The following table summarizes the rules and examples for different scenarios: Is Department Of Employee Retention Credit Legit

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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Claiming and Reporting 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 is required to report the qualified wages, health insurance costs and credit claimed by each quarter.

Form 941

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

Reduce the amount of taxes that the employer has to deposit with the IRS by the amount of the ERC
You can ask for advance payment if your ERC exceeds the amount of taxes you have to pay. Is Department Of Employee Retention Credit Legit
Carry forward any excess credit to subsequent quarters

To avoid making common errors and fill out Form 941 correctly, employers 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 to report the qualified wages and health insurance costs paid to eligible employees
Use Line 13d to declare the credit amount claimed for each quarter
Line 13f is used to report any advance payment of credit received by the IRS
Use Line 24 to request an advance payment of the credit if needed
Use Line 25 to report any excess credit that can be carried forward to subsequent quarters
Sign and date Form 941 and attach any supporting documents or schedules

Tips and resources on how to complete Form 941 include:

Use electronic filing (e-file) or online services to submit Form 941 faster and more securely
Visit the IRS website to get the latest updates, FAQs, and guidance regarding Form 941 and ERC.
Need clarification? Contact an IRS agent or tax professional.

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 the employer to claim the ERC retroactively for past quarters. Form 941-X can be used by the employer to: Is Department Of Employee Retention Credit Legit

Claim refunds or credits for taxes overpaid due to the ERC
Report any additional wages or health insurance costs that are paid to employees who are eligible but not reported on Form 951.
You can correct any errors or omissions that may have affected the credit claimed amount on Form 941.

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

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 to indicate the lines on Form 941 that are being corrected or adapted.
Use Part 3 to explain the reason for a correction or adjustment on Form 941
Use Line 24 to report any additional qualified wages and health insurance costs paid to 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 and date Form 941, and attach any supporting documentation or schedules

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

You must file a separate 941X form for each quarter you are correcting or adjusting. Is Department Of Employee Retention Credit Legit
You should fill out Form 941/X as quickly as possible after you have made an adjustment or discovered an error.
Updates, FAQs, and guidance about Form 941X and ERC can be found on the IRS website.
For clarifications or help, you can contact the IRS.

Deadline and Statute of Limitations

The deadline to submit Form 941 is usually the last day in the month following each quarter. 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. After the end quarter. For Q1 2021 (January-March), form 941 must be submitted by May 10, 2020, Is Department Of Employee Retention Credit Legit

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

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Conclusion

Employee Retention Credit is a valuable tax credit that can assist employers affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic to keep their employees and reduce the impact on their business or organization.

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. The ERC may be claimed through IRS Forms 941 and 941X, which require the employer to report the qualified wages paid and the health insurance expenses incurred by each employee.

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 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.

ERC can have a significant impact on your business, organization, and your employees. It will help you to keep your employees, maintain a healthy cash flow, as well as recover from 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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Is Department Of Employee Retention Credit Legit

What is the ERC?

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

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).

Is everyone eligible for the ERC?

Not everyone is eligible for the ERC. The ERC is only available to employers that have paid wages to employees between March 13, 2020, and December 31, 2021.

There are also criteria for eligibility; more details can be read above, but here are the highlights:

A government order suspended the business (fully or partly) because of the COVID-19 epidemic.
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.
They are a recovery startup business that began operations after February 15, 2020, and has average annual gross receipts of no more than $1 million.

What is the ERC rate?

The amount of ERC an organization or business receives depends 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 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.

What is the deadline for submitting the ERC forms?

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

The deadline for Form 941 is usually the last day in the month after the end of every quarter. In contrast, the deadline to submit Form 941 X is generally set at three years since the date of the original 941. It can also be from two years from the date that the tax was paid, with the later date being the more preferred one.