Jan 12
Am I Eligible For ERTC? How To Find Out & Cash In Before The Deadline
If you’re a business owner, chances are good that you’re eligible for the ERTC program, even if you weren’t when it was originally introduced.
There have been some legislative changes since the beginning of the program, and to make a long story short, a lot more businesses are eligible now than were back in 2020.
So how do you know if you’re eligible?
We’ll get there in just a minute — but first a quick refresher on the ERTC program. Feel free to scroll past this if you’re already familiar with what it is.
What Is The ERTC Program?
Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC), also sometimes referred to without the “tax” as just the Employee Retention Credit (ERC), is a federal program put in place to incentivize employers to keep their workers on the payroll through the shutdowns and uncertainty.
It was signed into law with the CARES act in 2020 and offered eligible business owners a refundable payroll tax credit equal to a percentage of their employee’s wages.
At the same time, many employers were taking Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans, and this made them ineligible for the ERTC — so they soon forgot about it.
Increasing Eligibility
When the Consolidated Appropriations Act was signed into law, in 2021, the rules changed — to the benefit of many employers.
Now business owners who were previously not able to access the ERTC program, because they had already taken a PPP loan, could receive the benefits of both.
It also extended the duration of the program to early 2021, which allows them to claim several months in additional tax credits.
The passing of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) and the Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act further extended the program, so that credits can be claimed for employee wages up to September 30th, 2021.
How Much Credit Can You Claim?
The question on everybody’s mind is — what’s the bottom line.
How much can you claim in tax credits? Let’s put some dollar values on it.
The exact numbers will depend on your business, factors like how many employees you have, how much they were paid, etc.
You can claim up to 70% of an employee’s wage, to a maximum of $7,000 per employee, per quarter.
That can quickly add up to some seriously high numbers if you have several employees and kept them consistently employed.
How To Check Your Eligibility & Claim Your Credits
You could, of course, get all the relevant legal and financial data from a government source and work all this out — but there are better ways.
When it comes to legal and financial matters, it’s always best to let the experts sort it out, because a mistake can be surprisingly expensive.
There are some excellent advisory services dedicated to helping clients claim their ERTC benefits, and they’ve got the experience to make the whole process smooth and streamlined.
With all the changes in the laws and eligibility, it’s a good idea to use an advisory service that you know will be up to date, instead of just leaving it to a company accountant or payroll manager.
They can walk you through every step, or handle most of it for you, right up until the point where your tax credit shows up in the mail — opening the envelope is still up to you.
So what are you waiting for? There’s a tax credit just waiting for you to claim it — find out if you’re eligible before the program ends and it’s too late!
