Under Questioning from Warner, IRS Commissioner Commits to Doubling Processing For Business Tax Credits

Hearing

"I want to drill down on two issues… The first is, and this was the call we had in late March, the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC). And one of the things we put in place during COVID, again, a bipartisan piece of legislation, which I think was well intended to make sure that employers kept people on during COVID rather than having to put them on unemployment. As I shared with you, you know, there are a number of businesses in Virginia, and I imagine this is probably the case in other states as well, where there's been a backlog. They can't get clarity. They're not getting these tax credits, which I think they did deserve. And since these are businesses that did, from a policy standpoint, what I think we all thought was the right thing by keeping folks employed during that period. Can you update us on the overall ERTC backlog and where we stand?

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That was a great answer, and I also took away the fact that you're going to double per week… How much of the backlog is being taken care of on a weekly basis at this point?

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So we can look at 40,000 a week.

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You just said it on the record, so I'm going to be back to you!

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You know, Section 127 of the code has something that has again been bipartisan, supported for years, which basically, as you're aware, allows an employer to go ahead and send an employee back to school to get additional education. And that additional education up to $5,250 a year goes tax-free to the employee, great retention tool, great ability to get additional skills. One of the things and my friend John Thune and I put a bill in that got broad bipartisan support… that said… shouldn't we also allow those employees who have student debt to go ahead and qualify as well and… pay down that $5,250 a year, tax-free. We had it put in place for a year. It got extended through 2025. It seems like such a no brainer. The take up rate has been not great. What can we do to help further promote? And this is an area where, regardless how we feel about student debt, you know, everybody's kind of all in, and it's a great retention tool."

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