The Internal Revenue Service released information on how employees now have until the end of the year to repay any payroll taxes they deferred from last year.
Former President Trump issued a presidential memorandum last August allowing Social Security taxes to be deferred for the rest of 2020, but under the order they had to be repaid by April 30, 2021. The coronavirus relief package that Congress passed last month extended the repayment period until the end of this year.
Relatively few companies actually implemented the payroll deferral for their employees because there was no guarantee that the deferred payroll taxes would ultimately be forgiven by Congress. However, federal employees and military service members were still required to accept the payroll tax deferral, meaning those taxpayers will be facing smaller paychecks later this year.
Warner Johnston serves as the CEO of the USA for the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. Before ACCA, Warner served as vice president of statewide public affairs at Empire State Development, New York State’s lead economic development agency, where he worked closely with the Governor's Office on statewide messaging and the coordination of communications strategy while conceiving and developing New York State's business portal, New York First. His prior experience includes serving as director of public affairs at New York City's Parks Department and heading communications at the New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services. Warner also served as deputy press secretary under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani during 9/11.
Stacia Almquist is vice president of dental and vision for Sun Life Financial U.S.
Chris serves Infrastructure & Operations professionals as they face the unique opportunities and challenges of migrating business technology into modern, software-defined environments. He specializes in treating elements of infrastructure systems like developers treat their apps: individual pieces of code that can be dynamically shaped and remolded to handle changing business needs at will. Chris has a special passion for abstraction, automation, DevOps, and how I&O professionals and their organizational culture can evolve and capitalize on a flexible and exciting future.
Previous Work Experience
Chris comes to Forrester with 15 years of experience in infrastructure and process excellence. For the previous eight years, he worked with New York Life, designing and managing financial systems in its Investments group; managing the Investments service desk; and finally, as a key team member, implementing a new operating model for the technology organization as a whole. Prior to this, he managed infrastructure in advertising and public relations at Interpublic and the Public Relations Society of America, respectively.
Education
Chris holds a Master of Business Administration in information systems from Fairleigh Dickinson University and a bachelor’s degree in computer science and writing from Sarah Lawrence College.
In Notice 2021-11, the IRS on Tuesday explained how employers who deferred payroll taxes on behalf of their employees can withhold and pay the deferred taxes throughout 2021 instead of just within the first four months of the year.
The deferral applied to employees who were paid less than $4,000 every two weeks, or an equivalent amount for other pay periods, with each pay period considered separately. The taxes, which are technically called Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance, or OASDI, are calculated at 6.2 percent of employees’ wages.
Notice 2021-11 makes changes to last year’s Notice 2020-65 to reflect the extended payment period. Payments made by Jan. 3, 2022, will be considered to be timely because Dec. 31, 2021, is a legal holiday. However, any penalties, interest and additions to tax will now start to apply on Jan. 1, 2022, for any unpaid balances
The IRS cautioned that employees could see their deferred taxes being collected immediately, so employees should check with their organization’s payroll point of contact on what their collection schedule will be.
