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ARPA: Payroll and Unemployment Provisions

Unemployment Provisions

  • Extends continued unemployment provisions to September 6, 2021. This would include the: (1) pandemic unemployment assistance (PUA), (2) federal pandemic unemployment compensation (FPUC), (3) pandemic emergency unemployment compensation (PEUC), (4) the funding for waiving the one-week unemployment benefit waiting period, (5) the temporary financing of short-time compensation (STC) payments for states with programs, (6) STC agreements for states without programs, (7) temporary assistance for states with federal unemployment advances, and (8) the full federal funding of extended unemployment compensation.
  • Extends the FPUC unemployment payment of $300 per week through September 6, 2021.
  • Does not extend the 50% credit for reimbursing employers.

Paid Sick and Family Leave Credits

Changes under ARPA apply to amounts paid with respect to calendar quarters beginning after March 31, 2021:

  • Extends the FFCRA paid sick time and paid family leave credits from March 31, 2021 through September 30, 2021. 
  • Provides that paid sick and paid family leave credits may each be increased by the employer’s share of Social Security tax (6.2%) and employer’s share of Medicare tax (1.45%) on qualified leave wages.
  • Permits the Treasury Secretary to waive for failure to deposit penalties on “applicable employment taxes” if the failure to deposit is due to an anticipated credit. “Applicable employment taxes” are defined as the employer’s share of Medicare or Tier 1 RRTA tax. 
  • Allows for the credits for paid sick and family leave to be structured as a refundable payroll tax credit against Medicare tax only (1.45%), beginning after March 31, 2021.
  • Increases the amount of wages for which an employer may claim the paid family leave credit in a year from $10,000 to $12,000 per employee.
  • Expands the paid family leave credit to allow employers to claim the credit for leave provided for the reasons included under the previous employer mandate for paid sick time. For the self-employed, the number of days for which self-employed individuals can claim the paid family leave credit is increased from 50 to 60 days. 
  • Permits the paid sick and family leave credit to be claimed by employers who provide paid time off for employees to obtain the COVID-19 vaccination or recover from an illness related to the immunization.  
  • Increases the paid sick and family leave credit by the cost of the employer’s qualified health plan expenses and by the employer’s collectively bargains contributions to a defined benefit pension plan (as defined under Code Sec. 414(j)) and the amount of collectively bargained apprenticeship program contributions.
  • Establishes a non-discrimination requirement where no credit will be permitted to any employer who discriminates in favor of highly-compensated employees as defined under Code Sec. 414(q), full-time employees, or employees on the basis of employment tenure. 
  • Resets the 10-day limitation on the maximum number of days for which an employer can claim the paid sick leave credit with respect to wages paid to an employee. The current 10-day limitation runs from the start of the credits in 2020 through March 31, 2021. For the self-employed, the 10-day reset applies to sick days after January 1, 2021 for self-employed individuals. 
  • Clarifies that while no credit for paid sick and family leave may be claimed by the federal government or any federal agency or instrumentality, this would not apply to any organization described under Code Sec. 501(c)(1) and exempt from tax under Code Sec. 501(a), including state and local governments.

Employee Retention Credit

  • Extends the ERC from June 30, 2021 until December 31, 2021. The legislation would continue the ERC rate of credit at 70% for this extended period of time. It also continues to allow for up to $10,000 in qualified wages for any calendar quarter. Taking into account the CAA extension and the pending ARPA extension, this means an employer would potentially have up to $40,000 in qualified wages per employee through 2021. 
  • Limits the ERC to $50,000 per calendar quarter of an eligible employer that is a “recovery startup business” as defined in  Code Sec. 3134(c)(5). A “recovery startup business” is one that: (1) began operations after February 15, 2020 whose average annual gross receipts for a 3-taxable-year period ending with the taxable year which precedes such quarter does not exceed $1,000,000, and (2) experiences a full or partial suspension of operations due to a governmental order or experiences a significant gross receipts decline.
  • Allows the credit to be claimed against Medicare (1.45%, Hospital Insurance – HI) taxes only. Since the employer/employee tax rate for Medicare is 1.45%, it could take longer to immediately claim the credit under the ARPA for the third and fourth quarters of 2021. Instead of just withholding the taxes immediately, it could be more likely that more employers would need to file Form 7200 (Advance Payment of Employer Credits Due to COVID-19).
  • Continues the year-over-year gross receipts decline requirement at 20%; and the threshold for qualified wages (even if the employee is working) would continue to be 500 employees, as expanded by the CAA. Also, certain governmental employers would continue to be exempt from claiming the ERC, except certain tax exempt organizations that would include colleges and universities or medical or hospital care providers.
  • Requires the Treasury Secretary to issue guidance providing that payroll costs paid during the covered period would not fail to be treated as qualified wages to the extent that a covered loan under the Small Business Act is not forgiven. As with the expansion of the ERC under the CAA, this would continue to mean that Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) recipients would be eligible if the loan did not pay the wages in question.
  • Qualified wages paid by an employer taken account as payroll costs under (1) Second Draw PPP loans; (2) shuttered venues assistance and (3) restaurant revitalization grants are not eligible for the ERC.

Earned Income Credit

For tax years beginning after December 31, 2020, and before January 1, 2022, for taxpayers with no qualifying children:

  • The 7.65% credit percentage and phaseout percentage is increased to 15.3%.
  • The $4,220 earned income amount is increased to $9,820.
  • The $5,280 phaseout amount is increased to $11,610. These amounts are not adjusted for inflation.