Kansas Employee Retention Credit

COVID-19, the pandemic that has swept across the globe in recent years, has brought unprecedented challenges and hardships to businesses and organisations around. 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.

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The ERC, which was originally enacted in 2020 by the CARES Act, was extended and modified later by subsequent legislation in both 2021 & 2023.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

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

Main Features & 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 percentage and the limit vary depending on the time period for which the credit is claimed. For 2020 the percentage is set at 50%, while the maximum per employee is set at $5,000. For 2021, it is 70%. The limit is $7,000 per quarter per employee. In 2023, 70% of the employees will be eligible for the first two quarterly limits and 40% in the final two. The limit for each employee is $10,000. Kansas Employee Retention Credit
The credit is fully refundable, meaning that if the amount of the credit exceeds the employer’s payroll tax liability, the excess will be paid to the employer as a refund.
Employers who have experienced a significant drop in gross receipts or a complete or partial suspension of their operations as a result of a government order relating to COVID-19 can claim the credit. Alternatively, for 2023 only, employers who are considered recovery startup businesses can also claim the credit.
The credit can be claimed by filing an amended employment tax return (Form 941-X) or by reducing employment tax deposits in anticipation of the credit. By submitting Form 7020, employers can request an early payment of their credit.

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Eligibility Criteria

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

A government order suspended the employer’s organization or business in full or part due to COVID-19 for a calendar quarter of 2020 or 2021
The employer’s gross revenues for a quarterly calendar period in 2020, 2021 or both were less that 50% (for the 2020 quarter) or 80% (2021 quarter) of its gross revenue for the same year-ago quarter.

The recovery startup rule also applies to businesses that began operating after February 14, 2020 and had average annual gross receipts not exceeding $1 million. These businesses can be eligible for ERC regardless of their revenue decline or suspension.

Business Suspension

A government order can either suspend or fully suspend a company or organization if the following conditions are met:

The order limits commerce, travel, or group meetings due to COVID-19
The order has an impact on the business or organization
Order applies to any calendar year in 2020 or 21

Examples of government orders which can lead to a suspension of business include:

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
Bans on travel or restrictions on the ability to transport goods or service by a business

To determine if a business was fully or partially suspended by a government order, an employer must consider:

The order’s nature, scope, and impact on the business
The length, frequency, and timing of the order in relation to the quarters of the year.
The magnitude and impact of the order upon the revenue and expenses of a business

Revenue Drop

A significant decline in gross revenues is experienced by a business or organization if:

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 revenue for any quarter of 2021 was less than 80% that for the same period in 2019.

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

Sales of Goods & Services
Dividends, rents, and royalties, as well as interest, are all examples of annuities.
Contributions, gifts and grants Kansas Employee Retention Credit
Membership fees and dues
Gross business income

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

The same method of accounting (cash or accrual) that it used to file its federal income tax return for 2019
It will use the same calendar year quarters for 2019/2021 as it did to file its federal Employment Tax Returns (Form 941).
The same sources of revenue that they reported on their federal income tax return in 2019

Recovery Startup Business

A recovery startup business is a business that:

Start any new business or occupation after February 15, 2019,
Average annual gross receipts not exceeding $1 million during the three-year period ending on the tax year immediately preceding the calendar quarterly for which the credit will be determined

A recovery startup business can qualify for the ERC regardless of whether it meets the criteria of business suspension or revenue decline. There are certain limitations and rules that apply to recovery startups businesses.

The maximum credit available per quarter is $50,000
The credit is only available for wages paid in 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 and Calculation

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

How much an employer’s company was affected by the pandemic.
How many employees the employer had in 2019 or 2020/2021, and whether they worked or not during the pandemic
The amount of money paid by the employer to each employee as well as their health insurance during pandemic

To claim the ERC, the employer must fill out and submit a form 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 review the forms and pay the money back to the 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 will no longer be available. It began in March 2019 and will finish in September 2020. The employer has to claim the ERC before it expires or becomes unavailable. The employer must also spend the money properly and not waste any of it. Kansas Employee Retention Credit

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

Time Period

Different laws introduced, amended and terminated the ERC in 2020, 2021 and 2022. The credit amount depends on the period for which you claim it. The following table summarises the main features and differences between the ERCs of 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 employed affects how wages are calculated and defined, as well as the health insurance premiums for eligible employees. 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. This table summarizes thresholds and rules to determine the size of an employer for each period.

Time Period	Small Employer Threshold	Large Employer Threshold
2020	Less than or equal to 100 FTEs in 2019	More than 100 FTEs in 2019
Q1-Q2 2021	Less than or equal to 500 FTEs in 2019	More than 500 FTEs in 2019
Q3-Q4 2021	Less than or equal to 500 FTEs in any calendar quarter in either calendar year beginning after December 31, 2019, and ending before July 1, 2021. If an employer did not have in either calendar year beginning after December 31, 2019, and ending before July 1, 2021, the employer is treated as a small eligible employer if it had less than or equal to 500 FTEs in any calendar quarter beginning after June 30, 2021. For recovery startup businesses, the employer size is irrelevant. For severely financially distressed employers, the employer size is irrelevant if the employer had a revenue decline of more than 90%. Otherwise, the same rules as Q1-Q2 2021 apply.	More than 500 FTEs in any calendar quarter in either calendar year beginning after December 31, 2019, and ending before July 1, 2021. If an employer did not exist in either calendar year beginning after December 31, 2019, and ending before July 1, 2021, the employer is treated as a large eligible employer if it had more than 500 FTEs in any calendar quarter beginning after June 30, 2021.

To count FTEs for a given year or quarter, an employer must use the following steps:

Count the number of employees who worked at least 30 hours per week (or at least 130 hours per month) for each month in the year or quarter
Add up the total hours worked by all other employees (who are not counted as FTEs) for each month in the year or quarter
Divide the total hours by120and round down to the nearest whole number
Add the number of FTEs from Step One and Step Three for each month in the year or quarter
Calculate the average number of FTEs by adding up the monthly totals and dividing by 12 (for a year) or 3 (for a quarter)

Qualified Wages and Health Insurance Costs

Qualified wages refer to wages paid during a period when the business is suspended or revenues are declining. Other forms of compensation are also included in qualified wages, such as tips, bonuses and commissions. Qualified earnings also include costs associated with providing health insurance coverage to eligible employees. These include premiums as well as deductibles.

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 summarizes the rules and examples for different scenarios: Kansas 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 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. Form 941 allows employers to claim ERCs for current or future quarterly periods. Form 941 allows the employer to do:

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

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

Use the newest version of the Form 941, which reflects changes to laws that impact the ERC.
Follow the instructions and worksheets provided by the IRS for calculating and reporting the ERC
Use Line 11c to report the qualified wages and health insurance costs paid to eligible employees
Use Line 13d to report the amount of credit claimed for each 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
Use Line 25 to report any excess credit that can be carried forward to subsequent quarters
Sign and date Form 941, and include any supporting documents and schedules.

Some tips and resources for filling out Form 941 are:

Use online services (e-file or online filing) to submit Form 941, faster and with greater security.
Visit the IRS website to get the latest updates, FAQs, and guidance regarding Form 941 and ERC.
If you need clarification or assistance, contact the IRS or an accountant.

Form 941-X

Forms 941-X are used to rectify errors or make adjustments to Forms 941 previously submitted. The employer can also claim the ERC retroactively by using Form 941X. The employer may use Form 941 to: Kansas Employee Retention Credit

Claim refunds or credits for taxes overpaid due to the ERC
Report additional qualified earnings and health benefits paid to eligible employee that weren’t reported on Form 941.
You can correct any errors or omissions that may have affected the credit claimed amount on Form 941.

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

Use the latest form 941X that reflects changes to laws that are applicable to the ERC.
Use the IRS worksheets and instructions to calculate and report the ERC
Use Part 2 to indicate the lines on Form 941 that are being corrected or adapted.
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.
Use Line 25 for any additional credit claimed each quarter.
Use Line 26 to report any credit or refund due to the ERC claim.
Attach any supporting documents and schedules to Form 941-X.

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

For each quarter to be adjusted or corrected, you must submit a different Form 941X. Kansas Employee Retention Credit
File Form 941-X as soon as possible after discovering an error or making an 0adjustment on Form 941
The IRS website has updated FAQs on the ERC, Form 941 X, and updates to the IRS website.
For clarifications or help, you can contact the IRS.

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, Q1 2020 (January-March) Form 941 will be due on April 30, 2021. The employer can still file Form 941 if they have deposited their taxes on time. Following the end of the quarter. Form 941 for the first quarter of 2021 (January – March) is due on May 10, 2021. Kansas 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 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 employers filed Forms 941 and paid taxes on June 15, 2019, the deadline is June 15, 2022.

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Conclusion

The Employee Retention Credit (ERC) is a valuable tax benefit that can help employers who were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic keep their employees on the payroll and reduce the impact of the pandemic on their businesses or organizations.

The ERC (Eligible Employees Credit) is a tax credit that can vary depending on the time frame, the number and type of employees employed, and the amount paid in wages and insurance to employees eligible for the credit. The ERC can be claimed by filing Form 941 or Form 941-X with the IRS and reporting the qualified wages and health insurance costs and the amount of credit claimed for 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 cannot be claimed forever. There is a deadline to claim it and a statute that limits its use. 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. For clarifications or help, you can always contact an IRS agent or tax professional.

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. This article should have helped you learn more about ERCs and how to apply for them. Thank you for reading, and stay safe.

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Kansas Employee Retention Credit

What is the ERC?

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

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

Can everyone apply for ERC?

ERCs are not available to all. It is only available to employers who have retained employees and paid their wages to them 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-issued order temporarily or permanently suspended the organization or business 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 is ERC?

The amount that an organization or company receives in ERC will depend on many 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. To learn more about how ERCs are calculated, please read the 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).

The employer must provide a quarterly report detailing the wages, health insurance and other costs that are eligible for credit as well as the amount claimed.

When is the Deadline for Filing the ERC Forms?

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

Form 941 deadline is typically the last of the month following each quarter. While the deadline for the Form 941-X will be three years after you filled out the original Form 941. It is also possible to choose a date of two years following the date on which the tax was paid.