Payroll Tax Cut to Boost Take-Home Pay for Most Workers

In their latest press release, the IRS released instructions to help employers implement the 2011 cut in payroll taxes, along with new income tax withholding tables that employers will use during 2011. Since the tax deal was so late in being finalized, employers have until January 31, 2011 to get up to speed.

From IRS.gov:

Millions of workers will see their take-home pay rise during 2011 because the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 provides a two percentage point payroll tax cut for employees, reducing their Social Security tax withholding rate from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent of wages paid. This reduced Social Security withholding will have no effect on the employee’s future Social Security benefits.

The new law also maintains the income-tax rates that have been in effect in recent years.

Employers should start using the new withholding tables and reducing the amount of Social Security tax withheld as soon as possible in 2011 but not later than Jan. 31, 2011. Notice 1036, released today, contains the percentage method income tax withholding tables, the lower Social Security withholding rate, and related information that most employers need to implement these changes. Publication 15, (Circular E), Employer’s Tax Guide, containing the extensive wage bracket tables that some employers use, will be available on IRS.gov in a few days.

The IRS recognizes that the late enactment of these changes makes it difficult for many employers to quickly update their withholding systems. For that reason, the agency asks employers to adjust their payroll systems as soon as possible, but not later than Jan. 31, 2011.

Continue reading at IRS.gov...

A Tax Cut Both Parties Should Love -- But Don't

Tax cuts and rebate checks to stimulate the economy have been discussed frequently in the media. However, some economists are now suggesting that a payroll tax holiday would be more effective. Even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office agrees that a payroll tax holiday would be more likely to increase consumer spending.

CNNMoney.com reports

The payroll tax is the amount paid by both employers and employees to fund Social Security. Each pay 6.2% of a worker's salary, up to the first $106,800 of income.

Because of that limit, the tax is one of the most regressive in place today, hitting the working poor and middle class much harder than the wealthy.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated earlier this year that eliminating payroll taxes was roughly two to four times more effective in spurring economic activity than a reduction in income taxes, the policy option that's getting most of the attention in Congress.

"This is a better tax cut than a general income tax cut," said Roberton Williams, senior fellow with the Tax Policy Center. He said getting more money to workers who earn less increases the chance that it will be spent rather than saved, a concept popular among Democrats.

Read more here

Form to Claim Payroll Tax Exemption for Hiring New Workers Now Available

Unemployment rates were 9.9 percent nationally last month according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the fight against unemployment in our country, President Obama signed the payroll tax exemption and new hire retention credit created by the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act on March 18. The Act states that employers who hire unemployed workers this year (After February 3, 2010 and before Jan 1, 2011) may qualify for a 6.2 percent payroll tax incentive which will exempt them from the employer’s share of Social Security tax on wages.

The Internal Revenue Service announced today that they have issued the newly revised payroll tax form that most employers can use to claim the exemption of newly hired workers during 2010.

Additionally, for each qualified employee retained for at least a year whose wages did not significantly decrease in the second half of the year, employers may claim a “new hire credit” of up to $1,000 per worker.

To claim the Payroll Tax Exemption, employers would need to file IRS Form 941, Employers Quarterly Federal Tax Return. This means the HIRE act is not allowing employers to claim the payroll tax exemption for wages paid in the first quarter, only for wages paid in the second quarter. You can find the full instructions for claiming the exemption as well as claiming wages paid from March 19 - March 31 of this year on the IRS website.

Mcdonald's Co-Owner Admits Cheating IRS Out of More than $600k

Yesterday a McDonald’s franchise owner in Minnesota plead guilty to charges of IRS tax evasion. The husband and wife cheated the IRS out of more than $600,000 in payroll taxes, and could face up to five years in prison as a result.

According to the Star Tribune post below, the couple cheated the IRS by failing to turn over the employment taxes that were collected.

Stephen J. Kopel, 62, of Rosemount, pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court in Minneapolis to willful failure to account for and pay taxes.

Kopel, whose S&P Foods Inc. operates a McDonald's near 150th Street and Robert Trail, failed to pay over employment taxes to the IRS from 2003-2006. The total in unpaid taxes from those years was $627,437.41.

Kopel faces a potential maximum penalty of five years in prison. Sentencing has yet to be scheduled.

Would A Payroll Tax Holiday Boost The Economy?

From MSNBC.com:

As the April 15 tax deadline approaches, two freshmen House members are offering a new version of a hardy tax code perennial: a six-month “holiday” from payroll taxes that they say would benefit both small businesses and the working poor.

Under the bill offered by Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., and Rep. Walt Minnick, D-Idaho, employers and employees of businesses with 50 or fewer workers would pay no Social Security and Medicare taxes for six months. Currently, both employers and employees are required to pay the 6.2 percent Social Security tax and the 1.45 percent Medicare tax throughout the year.

According to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, payroll taxes are a bigger burden than income taxes for more than four out of five tax filers.

Lower-income workers would especially stand to benefit from a suspension of the taxes: according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, more than 60 million tax filers with incomes under $40,000 had tax returns in which their payroll taxes were greater than their income taxes.

A way to help low-income workers?

And according to the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank, more than 45 million tax filers had no income tax liability at all. A payroll tax cut is one of the few ways to reduce such workers’ federal taxes.

The tax holiday proposal would affect about 5 million firms and 34 million workers, according to Bill Rys, the tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business, which is backing the idea.

(The federation also backed Schock in his House race last year with a contribution of $2,000 of the total of $2.6 million which Schock raised.)

The payroll tax hiatus has been proposed in past recessions. Joel Slemrod, the director of the Office of Tax Policy Research at the University of Michigan Business School, says in his book "Taxing Ourselves" that “some Democrats responded to Republican income tax proposals in 2001 and 2003 by advocating temporary cuts in the Social Security payroll tax instead” as a way to help low-income people.

Among those supporting the idea of temporarily suspending the payroll tax in 2003: then-presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.

The Schock-Minnick bill would require small-business owners to invest the savings from the payroll tax holiday in hiring new workers or buying machinery or other investments to make their firms more productive.

How About a Payroll Tax Stimulus?

From The Wall Street Journal:

Congress and the Obama administration seem near to deciding the details of an economic stimulus package. Unlike the efforts of President Ronald Reagan and President George W. Bush, who also inherited declining stock markets and shrinking economies, this package is heavily weighted toward direct government spending, transfers to state and local governments, and tax changes that have virtually no effect on marginal tax rates.

Today the Reagan tax cuts are widely viewed as successful. Opinions on the longer-term effects of the Bush tax cuts are more diverse, but the short-term effects of the 2001 and 2003 cuts are generally credited as having been well-timed.

And what of the plan being put forward now? As crafted, it is unlikely to produce the desired results. For a similar amount of money, the government could essentially cut the payroll tax in half, taking three points off the rate for both the employer and the employee. This would put $1,500 into the pocket of a typical worker making $50,000, with a similar amount going to his or her employer. It would provide a powerful stimulus to the spending stream, as well as a significant, six percentage point reduction in the tax burden of employment for people making less than $100,000. The effects would be immediate.

By contrast, the stimulus now under consideration would suffer from the usual problems of government spending. The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation have calculated that only $170 billion, or about one-fifth of the $816 billion package will be spent in fiscal 2009. An additional $356 billion will be spent in 2010. That leaves $290 billion to be spent when even the most pessimistic forecasters think the economy will be in recovery mode.