FAQ Archives - Catholic Benefit Plans

Paying a 10% ERTC Filing Fee is 400% More Expensive than Paying a Law Firm’s Hourly Rate.

Paying a 10% ERTC Filing Fee is 400% More Expensive than Paying a Law Firm’s Hourly Rate. In a study of 202 Employee Retention Tax Credit Filings for tax-exempt, religious entities, we found that (on average) it is more than 400% more expensive to pay a 10% fee to the ERTC filing company, than […]

For the ERC, For Eligible Employers that include multiple entities aggregated and treated as one employer for purposes of the Employee Retention Credit, will the individual entities separately report

Yes. Each Eligible Employer will report its Employee Retention Credit on its employment tax return (or on its third party payer’s employment tax return) without regard to its aggregation with other entities as one employer for purposes of determining its eligibility for the credit. Each Eligible Employer’s credit will be the amount of the credit […]

For the ERC, May an Eligible Employer that averaged more than 100 full-time employees during 2019 treat wages paid to exempt salaried employees for time for which they are not providing services as qu

Yes. For an Eligible Employer that averaged more than 100 full-time employees during 2019, the wages paid after March 12, 2020, and before January 1, 2021, to exempt salaried employees for the time that they are not providing services would be considered qualified wages for purposes of the Employee Retention Credit. An Eligible Employer may […]

For the ERC, May an Eligible Employer that averaged more than 100 full-time employees during 2019 treat the wages paid to hourly and non-exempt salaried employees for hours for which they are not prov

Yes. For an Eligible Employer that averaged more than 100 full-time employees in 2019, wages paid to hourly and non-exempt salaried employees for hours that the employees were not providing services would be considered qualified wages for the purposes of the Employee Retention Credit. For an employee who does not have a fixed schedule of […]

For the ERC, May an Eligible Employer that averaged 100 or fewer employees during 2019 treat all wages paid to employees as qualified wages?

Yes. An Eligible Employer that averaged 100 or fewer employees during 2019 may treat all wages paid to its employees after March 12, 2020, and before December 31st, 2021, during any period in the calendar quarter in which the employer’s business operations are fully or partially suspended due to a governmental order or a calendar […]

For the ERC, Does an Eligible Employer identify the average number of full-time employees based on the aggregation rules?

Yes. All entities are considered a single employer for purposes of determining the employer’s average number of employees if: they are aggregated as a controlled group of corporations under section 52(a) of the Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”); are partnerships, trusts or sole proprietorships under common control under section 52(b) of the Code; or are […]

For the ERC, How does an Eligible Employer identify the average number of full-time employees employed during 2019?

The term “full-time employee” means an employee who, with respect to any calendar month in 2019, had an average of at least 30 hours of service per week or 130 hours of service in the month (130 hours of service in a month is treated as the monthly equivalent of at least 30 hours of […]

For the ERC, What is the definition of “qualified wages”?

Qualified wages are wages (as defined in section 3121(a) of the Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”)) and compensation (as defined in section 3231(e) of the Code), both determined without regard to the contribution and benefit base (as determined under section 230 of the Social Security Act), paid by an Eligible Employer to some or all […]

For the ERC, How is the maximum amount of the Employee Retention Credit available to Eligible Employers determined?

For 2020 calendar year, the credit equals 50 percent of the qualified wages (including qualified health plan expenses). The maximum amount of qualified wages taken into account with respect to each employee for the whole year is $10,000, so that the maximum credit for qualified wages paid to any employee is $5,000. Example 1: Employer M […]

For the ERC, If an employer is subject to a governmental order to fully or partially suspend its business operations and the order is subsequently lifted, is the employer considered to have business o

Yes. But only for periods during the calendar quarters in which the trade or business operations were fully or partially suspended. If the order was effective for a portion of the calendar quarter, then the employer is an Eligible Employer for the entire calendar quarter but can only claim a credit for wages paid during […]