IRS to Resume Processing “Low-Risk” Employee Retention Credit Claims

July 2024 Congress created the Employee Retention Credit (ERC) to incentivize employers to continue paying workers during periods when they could not stay open because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, concerns over fraud led the IRS to suspend processing ERC applications in 2023. The agency worried that unscrupulous promoters were encouraging taxpayers to file improper or fraudulent ERC claims. It recently announced that it will resume processing applications that it deems to be “low-risk” while continuing to review claims that it finds suspicious. Taxpayers who are waiting on a pending ERC claim may have to continue waiting, the IRS warns, because of the complexity of the ERC and the sheer volume of applications it has received. View the full article here.