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.
Rob Blackwell is the chief content officer of IntraFi Network and the host of the Banking with Interest podcast. He is the former editor-in-chief of American Banker.
He covered the financial services arena for nearly two decades, working first as a reporter covering Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the banking regulators, and anti-money laundering rules, among other topics. In 2005, he was named Washington Bureau Chief and subsequently helped guide the paper through its coverage of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, including articles on “too big to fail” and the drafting and passage of the Dodd-Frank Act.
In 2014, he was promoted to Group Editorial Director for Regulatory Policy for SourceMedia, leading the coverage of financial policy issues for American Banker, National Mortgage News, Credit Union Journal and PaymentsSource. He was promoted to Editor-in-Chief of American Banker in September 2017.
In 2017, Rob was given the Neal Award's Tim White Award, which recognizes editors "whose work displays extraordinary courage, integrity, and passion." He has helped American Banker win several Neal and Azbee awards as a reporter and editor, covering topics such as deposit insurance reform, the Wells Fargo phony-accounts scandal, American Samoa's effort to charter its own public bank, and the leadership fight at the CFPB. He has appeared on NPR, BBC, CNBC, Fox Business and C-SPAN as an expert on financial regulatory policy. He is also the author of six novels.
Ryan Gilbert is a general partner with Propel Venture Partners in San Francisco, Calif.
Andy Childs is the vice president of marketing at Paychex, a provider of human capital management solutions for payroll, HR, retirement, and insurance services.
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.
