COVID-19 - Deferral of employer Social Security tax payments

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The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provides payroll tax relief for employers by allowing the deferral of all employer social security tax payments and by providing employee retention credits

Employer FICA-SS deferral applies only to payroll checks dated from March 27, 2020, through December 31, 2020.

Deferring ERFICA-SS liabilities automatically

To defer a client's employer FICA-SS tax payments, follow these steps. (For payroll checks processed after installing the Accounting CS v.2020.1.2 update.)

  1. Choose Setup > Clients and click the COVID-19 Acts tab.
  2. With the appropriate client selected, click Edit.
  3. Mark the Defer payment of ERFICA-SS to the end of 2021 and 2022 checkbox.
  4. Save your changes.

When you process payroll checks for that client, Accounting CS automatically splits the ERFICA-SS amount, 50% percent being due on 12/31/2021 and 50% due on 12/31/2022.

The Actions > Manage Payroll Liabilities screen shows the updated due dates and clearly labels the deferred liabilities as such in the Notes field and the Deferred checkbox. Show me.

Deferred liabilities

Deferring ERFICA-SS liabilities manually

To defer a client's employer FICA-SS tax payments, follow these steps. (For payroll checks processed prior to installing the Accounting CS v.2020.1.2 update.)

  1. Choose Setup > Clients and click the COVID-19 Acts tab.
  2. With the appropriate client selected, verify that the Defer payment of ERFICA-SS to the end of 2021 and 2022 checkbox is marked.
  3. Choose Actions > Manage Payroll Liabilities.
  4. Click the Add Liability button.
  5. Select 941/943 - Internal Revenue Service in the Vendor field.
  6. Select ERFICA-SS in the Item field.
  7. Enter notes in the Notes field (optional).
  8. Enter the transaction date. This should match the date of the original liability for the payroll checks.
  9. Enter the total liability amount. This should match the amount for the original liability for the payroll checks.
  10. Click OK. Accounting CS splits the ERFICA-SS amount, 50% percent being due on 12/31/2021 and 50% due on 12/31/2022.
  11. Delete the original liability for the payroll checks.

The Actions > Manage Payroll Liabilities screen shows the updated due dates and clearly labels the deferred liabilities as such in the Notes field and the Deferred checkbox. Show me.

Deferred liabilities

Note: For clients using impound, the deferred liabilities are hidden by default in the Funding dialog (Accessed from the Actions > Direct Deposit screen). You can show them in the Funding grid by marking the Include payments deferred per COVID-19 Acts checkbox at the top of the dialog.

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