About
Our business blog focuses on issues affecting Virginia, D.C. and Maryland business owners as well as those in other jurisdictions throughout the country. We provide timely insight and commentary on federal and state rules and how they affect you. If you are interested in having us cover a specific topic, please let us know.
Topics
Archives
Select Month:Contributors
IRS Office of Chief Counsel monthly payroll industry call on September 3, 2020
In addition to Notice 2020-65 and Instructions to Form 941 which we outlined in our recent blog, the IRS Office of Chief Counsel for employee benefits, exempt organizations and employment tax provided informal but insightful guidance on its monthly IRS payroll industry call held on September 3, 2020. The informal guidance was directed in part toward clearing up confusion that remained even after the IRS’s issuance of Notice 2020-65 over whether, or to what extent, employers could simply ignore the “payroll tax holiday” created by the President’s August 8, 2020, Executive Order.
On October 1, 2020, the IRS released instructions for Form 941 providing additional guidelines for reporting deferred Social Security taxes pursuant to the President's Memorandum (discussed previously on our blog) and IRS Notice 2020-65.
Background
On August 8, 2020, the Presidential Memorandum directed the Secretary of the Treasury to use his authority pursuant to section 7508A of the Internal Revenue Code to defer the withholding, deposit, and payment of certain payroll tax obligations.
On August 8, 2020, President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum directing the Treasury Department to defer the employee's portion of Social Security taxes due to the COVID-19 pandemic for wages paid from September 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020 (see our blog). The deferral applies only for wages less than $4,000 for any bi-weekly period, or the equivalent any other pay period.
On August 8, President Donald J. Trump, signed the memorandum (the President’s Memorandum) directing the Secretary of Treasury to defer the withholding, deposit, and payment of the 6.2 percent payroll tax during the period of September 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020 for wages less than $4,000 during any bi-weekly pay period (i.e., $104,000 annually) on a pre-tax basis. The Department of the Treasury is expected to provide additional guidance later in August.