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.
Joe Emison is the co-founder and CTO of Branch. He has been building software and technology organizations for more than 25 years. Prior to Branch, Joe founded BuildFax, the company's leading provider of building permit data to financial institutions (acquired by Verisk); Spaceful, software for tenant-rep brokers in commercial real estate (acquired by Xceligent), and BluePrince, software for managing local building departments (acquired by Harris Computer). Joe graduated with degrees in English and Mathematics from Williams College and has a law degree from Yale Law School.
Melbourne O'Banion is Bestow's CEO and co-founder. An entrepreneur and seasoned investor, O'Banion has a track record of start-up success. Before Bestow, he was a founding member of Presidio Title, a leading title insurance agency in Texas. And together with his wife, he founded Beauty Bioscience, a luxury skincare line. He's a member of the National Advisory Council for the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University, where he studied Finance and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, and is on the board of the SMU Tate Lecture Series.
Rodrigo Liang is co-founder and CEO of SambaNova Systems.
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.
