Tag: Employee Retention Credit

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Claiming Available Tax Credits for Businesses

The U.S. offers a variety of tax credits and other incentives to encourage employment and investment, often in targeted industries or areas such as innovation and technology, renewable energy and low-income or distressed communities. Many states and localities also offer tax incentives. Businesses should make sure they are claiming all available tax credits for 2021 and begin exploring new tax credit opportunities for 2022.

  • The Employee Retention Credit (ERC) is a refundable payroll tax credit for qualifying employers that have been significantly impacted by COVID-19. Employers that received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan can claim the ERC but the same wages cannot be used for both programs. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed by President Biden on November 15, 2021, retroactively ends the ERC on September 30, 2021, for most employers.
  • Businesses that incur expenses related to qualified research and development (R&D) activities are eligible for the federal R&D credit.
  • Taxpayers that reinvest capital gains in Qualified Opportunity Zones may be able to defer the federal tax due on the capital gains. An additional 10% gain exclusion also may apply if the investment is made by December 31, 2021. The investment must be made within a certain period after the disposition giving rise to the gain.
  • The New Markets Tax Credit Program provides federally funded tax credits for approved investments in low-income communities that are made through certified “Community Development Entities.”
  • Other incentives for employers include the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, the Federal Empowerment Zone Credit, the Indian Employment Credit and credits for paid family and medical leave (FMLA).

There are several federal tax benefits available for investments to promote energy efficiency and sustainability initiatives. In addition, the Build Back Better Act proposes to extend and enhance certain green energy credits as well as introduce a variety of new incentives. The proposals also would introduce the ability for taxpayers to elect cash payments in lieu of certain credits and impose prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements in the determination of certain credit amounts.

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IRS Issues Guidance for Claiming Employee Retention Credit in 2021

The IRS on April 2, 2021, issued additional guidance for employers claiming the employee retention credit (ERC) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), as modified in December 2020 by the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020 (Relief Act). The ERC is designed to help eligible businesses retain employees by offering a credit against employment taxes when qualified wages and healthcare expenses are paid during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Notice 2021-23 provides additional guidance for taxpayers to use when preparing credit claims and explains the changes to the employee retention credit for the first two calendar quarters of 2021, including:

Increased Credit Amount

  • Eligible employers may now claim a refundable tax credit against the employer share of social security tax equal to 70% of the qualified wages paid to employees after December 31, 2020 and before January 1, 2022.
  • The maximum employee retention credit available is $7,000 per employee per calendar quarter, for a total of $14,000 for the first two calendar quarters of 2021.

Broadened Eligibility Requirements

  • Employers who suffered a 20% decline in quarterly gross receipts compared to the same calendar quarter in 2019 are now eligible.
  • A safe harbor is provided allowing employers to use prior quarter gross receipts compared to the same quarter in 2019 to determine eligibility.
  • Employers not in existence in 2019 may compare 2021 quarterly gross receipts to 2020 quarters to determine eligibility.
  • The credit is available to some government instrumentalities, including colleges, universities, organizations providing medical or hospital care and certain organizations chartered by Congress.

Determination of Qualified Wages

  • Employers with 500 or fewer full-time employees in 2019 may include all wages and health plan expenses as “qualified wages.”
  • The Relief Act strikes the limitation that qualified wages paid or incurred by an eligible employer with respect to an employee may not exceed the amount that employee would have been paid for working during the 30 days immediately preceding that period (which, for example, allows employers to take the ERC for bonuses paid to essential workers).

Advance Payments

  • Employers with fewer than 500 full-time employees will be allowed advance payments of the ERC during a calendar quarter in which qualifying wages are paid. Special rules for advance payments are included for seasonal-employers and employers that were not in existence in 2019.

ERCs have become a regular discussion with ATA clients as they can be a relief to businesses who have been impacted by COVID-19. Please contact your ATA representative with further questions and guidance on this opportunity.

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Tax

Frequently Asked Questions about the Employee Retention Tax Credit

On March 1, the IRS issued guidance for employers claiming the employee retention credit (ERC) under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), as modified in December 2020 by the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020 (Relief Act). The ERC is designed to help eligible businesses keep employees on their payroll by offering a credit against employment taxes when qualified wages and healthcare expenses are paid during the COVID-19 pandemic. The guidance under Notice 2021-20 clarifies and describes retroactive changes to the ERC under the new law for employers seeking to claim the credit for 2020 in the form of frequently asked questions. The IRS has stated that it will address calendar quarters in 2021 in later guidance.

Under the 2020 ERC rules, 50% of qualified wages and healthcare expenses (up to $10,000 of wages per employee in 2020) are fully refundable if paid by businesses that experienced a full or partial suspension of their operations or a significant decline in gross receipts. Prior to the Relief Act, employers that had received Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans were not eligible to claim the ERC. Now, employers with PPP loans can retroactively claim the ERC, however, the same wages cannot be used for both benefits. Q&A 49 of the notice outlines the IRS’ position on the interaction of the ERC with PPP loans for 2020.

Insight

Unfortunately, borrowers who have already received PPP loan forgiveness do not have the same planning opportunities that are available to borrowers who have not yet filed the SBA application, Form 3508 series, for forgiveness.

An eligible employer can elect which wages are used to calculate the ERC and which wages are used for PPP loan forgiveness. Generally, the election is made by not claiming the ERC on the federal employment tax return for the quarter. If the IRS adhered to this general rule, it would nullify the retroactive effective date of the credit. Therefore, in lieu of the general rule on how an employer would elect the wages used for ERC (i.e., by not claiming the ERC on the federal employment tax return for the quarter), the notice provides for a deemed election for any qualified wages that are included in the amount reported as payroll costs on the PPP Loan Forgiveness Application, unless the included payroll costs exceed the amount needed for full forgiveness when considering only the entries on the application.

For example, a business that borrows $100,000 of PPP loans and has both payroll and nonpayroll costs that far exceed the borrowed amount but reported payroll costs of $100,000 on their application to simplify the forgiveness process, cannot use any of the $100,000 of payroll cost to claim the ERC. This is notwithstanding the fact that 100% forgiveness may have been achieved by reporting only $60,000 of payroll costs and the remaining $40,000 from nonpayroll costs.

While the text of Q&A 49 appears to treat the minimum amount of payroll costs required for PPP loan forgiveness (i.e., 60%) as being the deemed election, the examples make it clear that the entire $100,000 in payroll costs reported on the PPP application cannot be included in ERC calculations. The IRS’ examples do not address the documented nonpayroll expenses that were excluded from the PPP application but were retained in the borrower’s files in accordance with the SBA’s instructions.

The notice also formalizes and expands on prior IRS responses to frequently asked questions and addresses changes made since the enactment of the Relief Act. It contains 71 frequently asked questions regarding the following topics:

  • Eligible employers
  • Aggregation rules
  • Governmental orders
  • Full or partial suspension of trade or business operations
  • Significant decline in gross receipts
  • Maximum amount of employer’s ERC
  • Qualified wages
  • Allocable qualified health plan expenses
  • Interaction with PPP loans
  • Claiming the ERC
  • Special issues for employees regarding income and deduction
  • Special issues for employers regarding income and deduction
  • Special issues for employers that use third-party payers
  • Substantiation requirements

 

For more questions regarding the Employee Retention Credit, contact your ATA representative.