New Employer Tax Credits You Should Be Aware Of

How Many Of These Employer Tax Credits Are You Missing Out On?

The world of business and the economy is changing fast. So fast, that many businesses are struggling to keep up with all of the latest updates. Changes and amendments have been made to the CARES Act as well as the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). Are you one of the thousands of small businesses looking to take advantage of these programs? If you don’t know where to start or if you’re even eligible, this can be very daunting. Don’t miss out on these employer tax credits.

Trying to simplify all of these is a task worth taking on. Let’s do a brief rundown of what types of provisions are available to you as an employer. The following have to do with available tax provisions:

• Employers can earn a retention credit of $5000 max/employee depending on the type of business.
  
  
• Deferred payroll tax offered of employer social security tax until the end of 2021, possibly 2022.
  
  
• Sick leave and family leave tax credit available.

For a more detailed breakdown of each of these, please visit the IRS Coronavirus Tax Relief website.

A nice feature of these programs is that you may have access to instant cash. If it is not available at the moment, you may get a refund from the IRS which will have a 2 week processing timeframe.

Who’s Eligible

Determining whether or not you are an eligible business is a good place to start. How many employees do you have? If it is under the 500 mark, you may qualify for these programs. If your business has been fully shut down, or even partially shut down due to government restrictions with COVID-19, you may be eligible.

With checking your eligibility, comes figuring out how much tax relief your individual company may need.

• Evaluate the amount of eligible tax credit, wage and figures you have per pay period.
• Reconcile regularly all credits for tax reporting purposes.
• Finally, recover obtainable funds from the credits or claims you have sent in.

Write It Down

The most underrated but important step to take when delving through all of this information, is to keep a written record of what you are doing. Write down what procedures are in place in your business, and any calculations you used to gather your data. You may need to support your claims with proof. Bad record keeping will keep you from getting the needed funds for your business to operate.  Familiarize yourself with the form 941 and form 7200. These are used for IRS documentation purposes. Utilize the IRS website to research what information is needed for each of these forms.

Check current labor laws to make sure you are up to date and compliant before filing for any government programs. This can take away your eligibility very quickly if overlooked. Lastly, you need to be aware of what forms to fill out for the IRS. 

With good preparation, you don’t have to jump into the deep waters of government tax programs unequipped. Make sure your business is not only able to survive this climate, but thrive in this climate. We are all in this together.