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ERC Qualification

To qualify for the ERC, businesses must meet specific criteria regarding W2 employees, ownership, and COVID-19 impacts.

Updated over 4 months ago

To qualify for the Employee Retention Credit, as client needs to have W2 employees who have received wages during the qualifying tax periods. The ERC qualified wages do not include majority owner (50% or more ownership) wages or wages paid to relatives of a majority owner. In the case spouses are 50% owners each, neither of their wages or that of their families wages are eligible for the ERC as the IRS looks at spouses as one.

If you're the majority business owner and the only one that receives W2 wages, you won’t qualify the ERC credit. However, if you have an employee that is not related to you. Their wages would qualify for the ERC credit.

In 2020

  • Must have less than 100 full-time employees in 2019 (refer to The Employee Retention Credit Program Has Closed But Businesses Can Retroactively Claim Credit to calculate)

  • Have been affected by full or partial governmental shutdown for COVID-19 orders

    • Including business operations disrupted based on not being able to obtain critical goods/materials or their supplier being impacted

  • or have a 50% decline in gross receipts compared to the same quarter in 2019 (ineligible when the gross receipts are back to at least 80%)

In 2021

  • Must have less than 500 full-time employees in 2019 (refer to The Employee Retention Credit Program Has Closed But Businesses Can Retroactively Claim Credit to calculate)

  • Have been affected by full or partial governmental shutdown for COVID-19 orders

    • Including business operations disrupted based on not being able to obtain critical goods/materials or their supplier being impacted

  • You had a 20% decline compared to the same quarter in 2019

Startups

  • The business was started after Feb. 15, 2020

  • Can only qualify for Q3 & Q4 of 2021

  • The ERC caps off at $50k per quarter for a possible total of $100k in ERC

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