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.
Rachel is one of the premier leading insurance professionals with over ten years of experience in the industry. After launching her career as a management liability underwriter at AIG, she spent several years as a client advisor for the Financial Institution Group at Marsh. Rachel advised on risk management for the world's largest banks, insurance companies, asset managers & funds. Since joining the Founder Shield as a Senior Account Executive in 2017, she now leads the Customer Success team. Rachel focuses on client advising, improving policy language for venture-backed companies, including financial institutions, ecommerce, and SaaS companies, and developing new tech to continue driving innovation in the insurance industry.
Katka is an Associate Partner with McKinsey & Company, based in Boston. She serves private equity clients with expertise in financial technology, including insurance, wealth management and banking. She has conducted more than 20 diligences in the space and has served financial technology companies on growth, pricing, and go-to-market strategies as well as M&A. Katka holds an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School, an MSc. in financial economics from the Saïd Business School at Oxford University, and a BSc. in mathematics from University College London.
Luke Adaline is group market manager, U.S. Distribution, at Sun Life U.S.
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.
