BREAKING NEWS: IRS Issues Guidance to Implement Deferral of Certain Employee Social Security Tax Withholding

The IRS released a notice today with guidance for implementing the August 8th Presidential Memorandum. That Memorandum allowed employers to defer withholding and payment of the employee’s portion of the Social Security tax if the employee’s wages are below a certain threshold.

The notice does appear to make the deferral mandatory for employers to implement for all applicable wages paid from September 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020. The guidance was just released, so we are in the process of analyzing it, but if you have an upcoming payroll that would meet these requirements, you should contact your payroll provider as soon as possible.

The full notice can be found here.