Frequently asked questions about the Employee Retention Credits

If you qualify, you could receive extra money to put back into your business (or your pocket). While you can’t speed up the ERC refund process itself, you can get an advance of your refund with an ERC loan. The deadline for filing your amended returns to receive the ERC for filing year 2021 is April 15, 2025.

IRS Updates ERC FAQ to Address Taxpayers Who Have Income Tax Issues With ERC Refunds Received

The Office of Student Financial Aid will have access as well as the student and anyone for whom the student has signed a Release of Information form. Please carefully read all instructions for each section of the forms. Next, you will send the IRS Verification of Non-filing Letter and, if your spouse worked, any W-2 forms to our office via fax, postal mail, or in person. Once you receive it, please submit a copy to our office, as well as a signed and dated statement indicating that they were the victims of tax-related identity theft and that the IRS is aware of it.

Are Non-Profit Businesses, 501(c)( , Eligible for the Employee Retention Credit?

  • As background, ERC claimants are required to reduce wage expense related to qualified wages on which the ERC was claimed.
  • Section 280C(a) operates to disallow a deduction for a portion of wages or salaries paid equal to the sum of certain credits determined for the taxable year.
  • It was intended to lessen the pandemic’s economic impact on businesses and encourage them to retain employees as much as possible.

Any aid offered for Summer will be based on full-time enrollment (at least 12 credits for undergraduates and professional, and at least 10 credits for graduate students). You need to register for full time credits if your aid is offered to you as a full time student (12 credits for undergraduates, 5th years and professional students, or 10 credits for graduate students). If it is approved, you aid will be extended to a specific quarter or maximum number of credits. When you receive aid you are responsible for completing a certain number of credits per quarter and per year as well as maintaining your grade point average at a minimum of 2.0.

  • Do not include on your second ERC-VDP application any tax period(s) in which you’re entitled to ERC.
  • While ERC isn’t added to your gross income, it does affect the deduction you take for wages and salaries.
  • You can consult with a CPA, tax service, or even a third-party company that specialized in ERC refunds.
  • After your adviser has completed their section the form will be sent to our office for processing.

How long do I have to complete the form(s) before my session times out?

Cooperation includes, but is not limited to, responding timely and accurately to any requests. Calls regarding any other matter, including other ERC-related inquiries, will not be returned. Note that the ERC-VDP hotline is available only for help with Form 15434, questions about the ERC-VDP application status, and other questions related to ERC-VDP. If the reason can be corrected, please resubmit a complete application package, taking care to address any errors or omissions cited in the rejected application letter. It depends on the reason your application was rejected. See Calculating & paying the balance due under the second ERC-VDP for more information.

Employee Retention Credit FAQs

Now, even though the economic impacts of the pandemic have subsided, business owners like you can still take advantage of this tax credit. This provides welcome   flexibility to taxpayers who are still waiting to receive their 2021 ERC refunds. Form 15434, Part V requires information about any advisors or tax preparers who advised or assisted you with claiming ERC. Mail the new adjusted return to the IRS using the address in the instructions for the faqs on the employee retention tax credit form that applies to your business or organization.

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In an understated wage expenses scenario, the new FAQs provide that an employer may, in the tax year the claim disallowance is final, increase wage expenses on its income tax return by the same amount that it was reduced when it made its ERC claim. Before the new FAQs were released, Employer A generally would have filed an amended income tax return for the 2021 tax year to reflect reduced wage expenses of $700 for the amount of the ERC claimed for 2021. The 2021 credit is 70% of qualified wages paid, up to $10,000 per eligible employee, per quarter (including certain healthcare benefit costs). Employers who filed an ERC claim after filing their income tax return, for example, may have included their entire wage expense as a deduction on their income tax return before deciding to file an ERC claim. If you missed out on claiming the employee retention credit when filing your quarterly tax return, you can claim the credit retroactively. Employers can claim 50% of eligible wages up to $10,000 paid per employee per quarter from March 13, 2020, through December 31, 2020.

In addition, you may lose your eligibility for future quarters if at the end of the year you are short of the annual credit requirement. If you do not attend and do not notify us prior to the start of that quarter, your aid is subject to cancellation for the rest of the academic year. If you do not plan to enroll for a quarter or more, you must contact us so we can adjust your aid accordingly. If you are contemplating withdrawing from the quarter or have withdrawn, be sure to review the Withdraw/Refund/Repayment information and contact one of our counselors if you have questions. If you have aid for the quarter you have not yet received, it may be canceled and your future aid eligibility may be affected due to undergraduate or graduate Satisfactory Academic Progress requirements.

The second ERC-VDP terms don’t require you to repay any interest that was paid to you with the ERC refund. Staff at this hotline can’t provide status updates for ERC claims or claim withdrawals, only the ERC-VDP applications. If you need to eliminate some, but not all, of the ERC in that one period you’re entitled to ERC, you may file an amended employment tax return to correct this ERC. Instead, you may file an amended employment tax return to correct your ERC for this period.

If your business was closed and you did not pay qualified wages, you are not eligible to claim the ERC. The employee retention credit (ERC) is a refundable employer tax credit that was put into law through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. You should treat the failure to receive the ERC the same way taxpayers can treat the failure to receive any other reasonably expected reimbursement that prevented them from deducting a business expense in the year they paid or incurred the expense. Alternatively, you may, but are not required to, file an amended return, AAR, or protective claim for refund to deduct your wage expense for the year in which the ERC was claimed. Instead, Business A should account for the overstated deduction by including the $700 in gross income on its 2024 income tax return.

Most Frequently Asked Questions about the Employee Retention Credit (ERC)

The IRS explains the rationale behind this approach by referencing the tax benefit rule. A site devoted to articles on current developments in federal taxes geared toward CPAs in tax practice. For additional information about this topic, please contact us at

See What do I include in my application package and how do I prepare it? If you need to change an address or add a power of attorney, include the applicable forms in your package too. Additionally, you must sign and submit Form 2750, Waiver Extending Statutory Period for Assessment of Trust Fund Recovery Penalty PDF, since your tax liability may be subject to the trust fund recovery penalty (TFRP). Please note that if you willfully claimed an ERC that is fraudulent, or if you assisted or conspired in such conduct, applying to the second ERC-VDP will not exempt you from potential criminal investigation and prosecution.

Forms are automatically submitted to our office when completing the form using DocuSign. For the Verification Worksheets, you may also need to submit your tax documentation. The email will have instructions on how to submit the requested information. Oftentimes, additional expenses result in increased eligibility for student loans. If we are able to approve the request, then we will determine if there is any additional financial aid that can be offered.

Therefore, the IRS needs to commit as many resources as possible to ensure it continues to process these claims quickly. Although the IRS has made significant progress on the backlog of ERC claims, there is still a long way to go, and it’s unlikely it will resolve all claims quickly. These are often taxpayers who are facing financial hardship and who have limited resources to navigate IRS delays.

Business A does not need to amend its income tax return for tax year 2021. Taxpayers can instead include the overstated wage expense as gross income on the return for the tax year in which the ERC was received. The credit has been a target of significant IRS enforcement and many taxpayers have seen significant delays in processing of their claims. Recipients of PPP loans may be eligible to claim the employee retention credit. This tax credit helps lower the amount of employment taxes paid quarterly by employers to offer relief from the coronavirus pandemic.

The updates also reduce the risk of inadvertently claiming a double tax benefit—once through the credit and again via an unreduced wage deduction. These new alternatives may eliminate the need to file amended returns, AARs, or protective refund claims for prior years in certain scenarios. These FAQs provide alternative approaches for employers that need to make adjustments to their wage expenses in connection with prior ERC claims. However, only wages that weren’t included in the amount forgiven are eligible for inclusion in the calculation used to determine how big of a credit your company is eligible for. And, no, it is not taxable income, meaning you can use the credit to help your business without worrying about additional tax liabilities.

If the taxpayer capitalized wages or did not otherwise experience a reduction in tax liability for the overstated wage expense, they might not need to include the overstated wage expense amount in gross income in the year they received the ERC. In this scenario, Business A does not need to amend its income tax return for tax year 2021. When these taxpayers subsequently receive the ERC refund, an adjustment to their income tax liability is necessary. Regarding a simpler alternative, the IRS acknowledges that situations may arise where taxpayers did not initially reduce their wage expense or where their claim was disallowed after a reduction.

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