On Thursday February 10, Senators Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Maggie Hassan, D-N.H. introduced legislation to reinstate the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERC) that expired for most businesses in September after the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in November of 2021. The senators’ bill is a companion to the original “Employee Retention Tax Credit Reinstatement Act” filed in the House in December 2021 by Rep. Carol Miller.
The ERC was introduced by the CARES Act in 2020 and provided employers a tax credit of up to $7,000 per employee per quarter if their business suffered revenue reductions of at least 20% as compared to 2019. This new bill would retroactively let small businesses and nonprofits that kept workers on the payroll in the fourth quarter of 2021 claim the tax credit and should come before the Senate Small Business Committee for a hearing.