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.
Matt Harmon has served as the senior vice president of claims for The MEMIC Group since 2015. In this role, he is responsible for all claim-related activities for MEMIC across 40+ jurisdictions. Matt brings more than 25 years of workers’ compensation claims experience to his position. Matt began his insurance career in 1994 after graduating from the University of Maine with a degree in Business Administration. Active in his community, Matt currently serves on the board of directors for the American Red Cross of Southern Maine and Boots2Roots. He is a 2019 graduate of Maine Development Foundation’s Leadership Maine program, and is a current MBA candidate at the University of Maine.
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Lynnley is a business journalist who previously worked for Bloomberg, The New York Times, Newsweek and The Boston Globe. She spent seven years in the 1990s in Russia, where she covered energy and commodities for Reuters in Moscow. A graduate of Princeton University, she is fluent in Russian. In a recent cover story, she examined how some ESG benchmarks and funds contain holdings that are contrary to their stated and perceived missions. Follow her on Twitter at @BrowningLynnley.
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.
