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CCH® PAYROLL — 06/06/14

IRS releases rules for filing, reproducing substitute forms 941

The IRS has provided the general rules and specifications for reproducing paper and computer-generated paper substitutes of Form 941, Employer's QUARTERLY Federal Tax Return, Schedule B, Report of Tax Liability for Semiweekly Schedule Depositors, Schedule D, Report of Discrepancies Caused by Aquisitions, Statutory Mergers, or Consolidations, and Schedule R, Allocation Schedule for Aggregate Form 941 Filers. Employers should follow the specifications as set forth. Rev. Proc. 2012-46, IRB 2012-50 (reprinted as Publication 4436) is superceded.

What’s new?

1. Future developments. The IRS has created a page on IRS.gov for information about Form 941 at www.irs/gov/form 941. Information about any future development affecting form 941 (such as legislation enacted after we release it) will be posted on that page.

2. IRS mailing address change. The address for the Substitute Forms Program has changed to: Internal Revenue Service, Attn: Substitute Forms Program, SE:W:CAR:MP:P:TP, 5000 Ellin Road, C7-263, Lanham, MD 20706.

3. IRS DVD. The DVD containing IRS tax products will no longer be produced. Official IRS forms and information copies of federal tax materials can be obtained at local IRS offices, by calling the National Distribution Center, or by accessing IRS.gov. Further details are provided in Section 1.7 - Order Forms and Instructions.

4. Form 941-Employee Social Security Tax Rate Reduction. The employee social security tax rate reduction to 4.2% expired on 12/31/12 and reverted back to 6.2%. Therefore, the combined employer/employee social security tax rates on lines 5a-5c are changed from 10.4% (.104) to 12.4% (.124). The social security wage base limit is $113,700.

5. Form 941, Line 5d. New line 5d was added to calculate the Additional Medicare Tax on employee wages that exceeded $200,000 during the year. As a result of adding new line 5d, former lines 5d and 5e were renumbered to lines 5e and 5f, respectively. Line 5d was also retitled as “Taxable wages & tips subject to Additional Medicare tax withholding”.

6. Form 941, Line 6. The calculation on line 6 was changed to reference the renumbered lines 5e and 5f.

7. Form 941, Line 11. The title of line 11 was updated to include “filed in the current quarter” at the end of the line title.

8. Form 941, Lines 12a-13. Lines 12a, 12b, and 13 have been restored due to the likeliness that employees will continue to claim the COBRA premium assistance credit during 2013.

9. Schedule R, Column (g). The reference to “COBRA payments” was removed from column (g).

10. Editorial changes. Editorial changes were made throughout, including updated references. Redundancies were eliminated as much as possible. (Rev. Proc. 2014-26 IRB 2014-24, May 23, 2014.)

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