Social Security Deferrals at the Company Level

UPDATE: Social Security Deferrals are no longer available for opt-in

Are you interested in deferring employees’ Social Security taxes? As a Patriot payroll customer, setting up the tax deferral in 2020 and subsequent recollection in 2021 is easy.

Here, we’ll show you how to set up the employee Social Security tax deferral for one or more of your employees.

Background

On August 8, 2020, the president issued an executive order allowing eligible employees to defer their Social Security tax obligation to ease financial strains related to COVID-19.

Eligible employees are those who earn less than:

• $2,000 weekly
• $4,000 biweekly
• $4,333.33 semimonthly
• $8,666.67 monthly

Eligible employees can defer their Social Security tax between September 1, 2020 – December 31, 2020. However, employers are responsible for deferring and remitting the taxes. Because of this responsibility, you decide if you want to defer employees’ Social Security taxes.

Keep in mind that employers must start collecting the deferred Social Security taxes from employees’ wages between January 1, 2021 – April 30, 2021. The deadline for all deferred employee Social Security tax is April 30, 2021.

For more information, check out our blog article, “Your Top 2020 Employee Social Security Tax Deferral Questions, Answered.”

So, do you want to defer employees’ Social Security taxes in your Patriot payroll account?

Setting up the employee Social Security tax deferral at the company level

To defer one or more employees’ Social Security tax, go to:

• Settings >> Payroll Settings >> Defer Employee Social Security Tax
• Click the checkbox next to “Defer Social Security Tax for Employees.”
• You can add employees at this time OR you can add them later at the employee level. Check out our article, “Deferring an Employee’s Social Security Tax,” for more information.
  • If adding employees now: You can manually choose employees or click “Check all”
• Click the checkbox: “Defer for all new employees” if you want our software to automatically defer SS tax for all new hires within the deferral period. As you add new employees, the employee social security deferral will automatically be implemented for those employees for all payrolls that are run until 12/31/20.
• Save

*Keep in mind that, when you run payroll, our software will not defer Social Security tax for employees whose wages are more than the threshold for their respective pay period (e.g., $2,000 or more weekly are not eligible).

You can view the deferral for each pay period under your Payroll Register Report and on the employee pay stub.

To view your Payroll Register report:

Reports >> Payroll Reports >> Payroll Register

Stopping employee Social Security deferral

To stop the employee Social Security deferral for your employees, you can go to:

1. Settings >> Payroll Settings >> Defer Employee Social Security Tax and uncheck the box next to the employee name and click save.
   OR
2. Change the toggle on Advanced Tax Settings of the individual employee record.

Please see our help articles, “Deferring an Employees Social Security Tax” and “Collecting Deferred Employee Social Security Taxes” for more information.

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