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.
Jim Weiss is manager and assistant actuary in the Personal Automobile Actuarial Division at Insurance Services Office (ISO), a Verisk Analytics Company. His primary responsibilities include product development and filing strategy for personal auto predictive modeling initiatives, with a focus on vehicle rating and usage-based insurance (UBI). Weiss was lead actuary on the multi-state filing of both of ISO's telematics-based rating plans, and is a frequent presenter on UBI and personal lines analytical topics. He is co-author of "Beginner's Roadmap to Working with Driving Behavior Data," which was awarded the 2012 Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) Management Data and Information Prize, and author of "Five Simple Rules to Leverage Four Generations of Talent," which placed first in the 2013 Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) Society Diversity Essay Contest. Weiss is a Fellow of the CAS, a member of the American Academy of Actuaries, and a CPCU.
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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.
