01/10/2024
URGENT SMALL BUSINESS ALERT- PLEASE READ
Per the National Tax Advocate's Annual Report to Congress, processing of the ERC credit has been one of the main struggles of the IRS in 2023. This credit, meant to assist business owners during COVID shutdown mandates, ultimately was taken advantage of by several pop-up ERC "specialty" firms, often filing unsubstantiated claims or even blatantly fraudulent ones, resulting in business owners receiving, and often spending, thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in error.
The IRS has now unveiled their Voluntary Disclosure Program, allowing businesses to pay back money received in error through unsubstantiated ERC claims. This program runs through March 22, 2024. The Voluntary Disclosure program also requires the business to report the firm which filed their errant claim, allowing the IRS to identify other potentially errant claims and pursue audits with other businesses who filed through that firm.
If a business needs to file an amended 2020 return due to inaccurate ERC credit filing, the business is generally required to file the amended return by March 15, 2023, 3 years from the original filing date. This deadline, along with the Voluntary Disclosure program deadline, means that business owners essentially have 2 months to decide how to proceed with resolution of an inaccurately filed ERC claim, along with normal tax season duties for 2023 filing or extensions (for businesses whose taxes are due March 15th).
For more information on the Voluntary Disclosure Program, please reference the following article.
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-new-voluntary-disclosure-program-lets-employers-who-received-questionable-employee-retention-credits-pay-them-back-at-discounted-rate-interested-taxpayers-must-apply-by-march-22
📷: IRS Newswire no. IR-2024-07