VANNOY:

It’s not too late for ERTC, and here’s who qualifies. So this is a hugely important topic. ERTC, the Employee Retention Tax Credit. This isn’t brand new. This is, goes all the way back to the CARES Act March of 2020. But there’s some really big reasons why most small business owners don’t even know about it and understand why they probably still qualify. So, I, I, I’ve got an amazing guest today. You may have already seen him. He’s probably more famous than our show. JJ, the cpa Joshua Jensen. JJ has 30 years of public accounting experience. His YouTube channel, JJ, the cpa, has over 79,000 subscribers, more than 6.6 million views. He’s authored two books, traveled over 50 cities, presenting tax courses to thousands of fellow CPAs where he covers the latest tax logs and strategy. He’s also founded his own c p a firm at age 25. Still serves and advises those private clients daily, and he manages an l and d income insurance practice. Jensen Insurance. JJ, welcome to the show.

JENSON:

Thank you, Mike. I appreciate it. And I really think such a great service you’re providing to your clients to at least make them aware of this so that they can make sure that if they qualify, they are getting this extremely valuable tax credit.

VANNOY:

Yeah. So my, my word’s not yours, and I’ll, I’ll kind of ask you to, to jump in here and kind of help define, I think a lot of people understand generally what it is. To me, this is the single largest business employer tax credit in the country’s history. And we want, we just wanna provide the best information we can, which is why asking you a CPA to kinda share your thoughts. We, we don’t wanna play in any gray area. We don’t want to help people commit tax fraud, but we do want people to capture and claim the stimulus that they’re legally entitled to, right. To, to stimulate their business. Can, can you just give us a foundation and just define what is the ERTC?

JENSON:

Well, the employee Retention tax credit is for employers that have employees that they’re paying by w2. So if that already matches you, your business, then you’re already in the running for this. The second is, is that many hear credit and they think that this is just an offset of taxes, but the environment we’re in now is that you’re gonna go back and amend a payroll form, but you’re gonna get a check back from the I r s, literally money back to you as the business owner. And it is up to $26,000 per employee. That’s $21,000 available in 2021 and 5,000 available in 2020. And that’s per employee. So if you have four employees, then potentially you’re looking at 104,000. And the biggest misconception that we’re seeing amongst other tax professionals, let’s say CPAs, EAs, and Tax Pros, is that they think that it’s too late to get it.

And the bottom line here is that technically there is no more ERTC because you can’t get it on wages that you’ve paid after September 30th, 2021, unless you meet one fine, I exception, as a recovery startup business, but it’s not on wages that were paid in 22. This is on wages that you already paid, right? All the way back from March 13th, 2020 through September 30th of 21. So if you had employees, you paid ’em as a w2. Then right there, you’ve met the first qualification. The way that you go back and get it is quite frankly, a pretty simple process in terms of it’s a Form 9 41 x that then gets in essence filed with the I R S, and then they’re gonna send you a check back. Now, there’s a lot of work that goes into it, so it seems overwhelming, but when you actually look at the form, there’s only a few line items that you fill out.

The other big thing that we’re seeing is that many tax professionals, they’re recommending their clients to hire you guys, Mike and Asure with any of their payroll needs. And so, just like me, I don’t do payroll in my practice for any of my clients. I leave them up to the professionals just like you guys. And so with that many tax pros, in essence, kind of see it outside the scope of the services in which they’re providing to their clients because it’s related to payroll. And so even amongst your tax professional, your ea, your cpa, as good as they are, this doesn’t mean that they don’t know what they’re doing in regard to the services they’re providing to you, but they may just be unfair, unfortunately, outside the loop because there’s two real easy qualifiers next, which is, were you under a governmental order in any way, shape, or form?

And during those exact days that you were under a governmental order, well, did you have any effect to the commerce, to your travel to meetings? Did you have an effect to your business? It doesn’t really matter if you’re essential or not, because in essence, you have to look at what was the effect to your business. The other qualifier, which is completely separate from whether or not you had a governmental shutdown, is whether or not your gross receipts were down. Now, it does require a 50% reduction in 2020 compared to the same quarter in 2019. But check this out in 2021, it’s only a 20% reduction that’s needed in any given quarter in 2021, the first three really? Yeah. Compared to that same quarter in 2019, that’s a low threshold. So the other thing I’ll mention is that many times your tax pro, they’re not keeping up with what governmental orders were in effect for you or your business, right.

At any time. That’s not what really we do. The second is, as much as we’re inside your numbers, I work with a ton of private clients and helped every single one of mine get the ERTC, but traditionally, your tax pro may not have quarterly financials from you. You may think they do, but if they have not seen anything related to 20 or 21 and 2019 on a quarterly basis, then how would they know? So really, at the end of the day, you gotta dig deeper. I’ll tell you a quick story that I was visiting with somebody that called me in the middle of the night. They left a message at my office. I didn’t get it till about a week later when I got back from vacation, and it was John outta Michigan. And John said, listen, I don’t even know who you are.

I’ve never gone to YouTube for anything. But when I did this search, I watched one of your videos on JJ, the cpa, and the thing that struck me in your video, JJ, was to press on your tax professional on why you don’t qualify. If they’re saying that you don’t. And John just said, listen, we ended up getting 1.2 million back and ERTC when initially our C P A said, Hey, you don’t qualify. You’re an essential business. And at the end of the day, he went back and he did just what I said very simply and just said, can you at least tell me why I don’t qualify? And if it’s a one sentence, well, you’re a essential business that doesn’t, and say, can you tell me further why? Because that’s what he heard at first. Yeah. And when he pressed back that CPA came back and said, you know what? You’re right. We looked at this a little closer, and you do qualify 1.2 million for just in essence. Yeah. Pressing a little further,

VANNOY:

JJ, I think you make a good case of why tax professionals financial advisors might not know this stuff. And it, and it’s okay, right? There’s this kind of weird combination. You think of your cpa, you think of your tax advisor. The way you claim the credit is a 9 41 x. It’s an amended quarterly 9 41 employer tax return. So taxes, cpa, they should know this, right? But because it’s payroll related and because this, the driver behind it is, you know, shutdowns, partial shutdowns impact from covid, it’s way more nuanced than just, I, I I envision concentric circles. There’s a little bit of an overlap to the CPA a world, but there’s a big payroll kinda world here that I, I just wanna take CPAs kind of off the hook. We’re not trying to make, kick anybody’s butt, make anybody feel bad, but the small business administration says they, they think of the 3.3 million small businesses in the us it’s somewhere around 50% of all businesses are impacted, and therefore probably qualify.

That’s a million and a half businesses. My experience is, it’s a, it’s a fraction of that that think that they qualify. So that’s number one for the tax professionals. I also wanna kind of take off business owners off the hook here a little bit. When, when we think about the big laws. So you had the CARES Act that that gave everybody opportunity that you could either take P p P money or ERTC, right? Everybody gravitated towards P P P for a bunch of obvious reasons. And then December 27th of that same year, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, that was the end of the, of, of the Trump administration little known law, right? That P P P round two became available, but also said you could retroactively apply for ERTC even if you have a forgiven P P P loan.

And, and I think what happened was P P P round two sucked all the oxygen out of the room. It’s what the media focused on. It’s what people gravitated to. They went to the bank. They went to go get their second round of P P P and like crazy life in a covid era. I think people just didn’t realize because it, it, this didn’t get the headlines that it should have. So, whether you’re a tax professional, whether you’re a business owner, don’t feel bad that you don’t know that you qualify because there’s an excellent chance that you do. But hopefully at the end of the, of today’s conversation, it’s clear. I i, is that, is that a fair statement, JJ?

JENSON:

Absolutely. And I think the other part was that when you look at P P P loan forgiveness, whether you got it in 2020 or you got it in 21, round one, round two, yeah, exactly what you said, it took all the oxygen out of the room in terms of getting those dollars put together. The big aspect of that then is when you get to the forgiveness, is that many think, well, if I got P P P, well, I can’t in essence get ERTC. And even if they knew that it’s retroactive, they think, well, I wanna be able to use up my payroll so that I can achieve full P P P loan forgiveness, which is absolutely the smart move. But the big thing here is that with P P P, there are no ordering rules. Meaning you don’t need to quote unquote use up your P P P loan for payroll until the forgiveness amount is achieved and then get ERTC.

Because for P P P, there’s a 24 week covered period, right? Which is almost a six month period of time. Yeah. When you’re looking at the ERTC, that is in essence, if it’s due to gross receipts being down, it’s quarter by quarter. If it’s due to a governmental order or partial or foot shut down, well then for those exact days of that shutdown, right? And so when you’re looking at P P P loan forgiveness, every single one of my clients got P P P, that was a small business owner that had employees and every single one of ’em that could then also qualify for ERTC, either one of those conditions, was able to get full ERTC. And the reasoning for that is also with the P P P, it is up to over $46,000 per employee’s payroll that can go towards P P P loan forgiveness.

Well, it’s only up to $10,000 per employee when we’re talking about 2020. And you’re right, it’s up to 10,000 per quarter in 2021 per employee. So even the clients that qualified for the ERTC, let’s say in first and second and third quarter of 2021, we were still able to get full P PPP loan forgiveness and maximum ERTC because of really just what I indicated. And the other aspect is, and you all know this with payroll, that many times you think, okay, well this payroll period I’m going to use for P P P, the next payroll period I’ve gotta use for ERTC. That might be logical for a small business owner especially. But the bottom line here is that it really comes down to you’re not able to use the exact same payroll for any given employee for both programs at the same time.

But let me use a kind of a ridiculous example. But somebody could have one employee that they’ve paid on a Monday and that morning, let’s say they allocate their payroll for that one employee to P P P loan forgiveness. And then that afternoon for that same employee, they could allocate the payroll for ERTC. And on that same Monday, they can have a completely separate employee. And on that specific Monday, they in essence, apply all the payroll to P P P. It includes the employer paid portion of health insurance, which can be allocated. So you’re really able to kind of pull this apart, kind of with a scalpel. The other aspect is, is that when you’re looking at the P P P loan forgiveness application, you only need 60% of that P P P to be actually used for payroll. You can use right up to 40% for rent, utilities, and interest.

The other big thing that many aren’t grasping here is that for owners of the business, if they pay themselves W2 wages and their family and spouses, it’s pretty easy for those things not to qualify for ERTC if you’re an over 50% owner, but those payroll amounts get to be used in full for P P P up to the owner limits of 20,183. But there’s no limit on family or spouses. So here’s what I’m saying is you have in essence, way more payroll that’s available for the P P P even after you’ve used up That’s right. That ERTC. And so the other thing too, Mike, that people run into is if they’ve already filed for P P P loan forgiveness, they think, ah, it’s too late. Well, it’s not. The SBA and the IRS are on the same page with their notices as well as then the instructions with the P P P loan forgiveness applications, meaning right there in black and white, it indicates that just whatever payroll you’re using for one program, you just can’t use it for the other.

It doesn’t mean, right. Well, if you’ve already got P P P loan forgiveness, you’re outta luck to go and get ERTC. Now many, because of the 24 week covered peering being such a long period of time put down basically on that P PPP loan forgiveness application, especially for the smallest of employers, maybe just like me, they just said, you know what, here’s my P P P loan of a hundred thousand. In a 24 week period, I had 180,000 of payroll. They put down that figure of 180,000. But the IRS and the SBA also made it clear that only the payroll up to the amount of your P P P loan forgiveness and what in essence you allocated to payroll and didn’t put for rent. Utilities interest is available for ERTC, meaning somebody that put 180,000 down, they didn’t use 180,000 for P P P, they didn’t get 180,000 in forgiveness.

Cuz in the example I gave you, they would’ve gotten a hundred thousand of p p loan forgiveness, meaning there’d be another 80,000 in payroll available for ERTC. Now, the other aspect of this that I think gives a little bit of a salt taste to this is that it is a reduction in your deductions, right? Which means that in essence, you’re gonna get this money, but then whatever that dollar amount is, you have to reduce down your deductions for payroll. Yeah. On the income tax side. But at the same time, if you do an economic analysis of that, you spend 10 grand, let’s say, on a one employee in a quarter, and it gives you a $7,000 tax credit, that $7,000 tax credit yes, is gonna reduce down. Now your deductions by seven grand, but there’s gonna be a little bit of tax cost to that. But net net out of it, you still come out ahead, even when taking into account that you still had to spend the net three grand on payroll. You spent 10, you got seven back, you still had to spend the three. But the net fact there is still $5,000. It’s, it’s an

VANNOY:

Absolute

JENSON:

No-Brainer. So

VANNOY:

I think that one caught people flat footed, and I liked your phrase, put a little salt, salty taste in their mouth yeah, understand if you didn’t plan for it, right? And then, because there’s the cash outlay consequence of that lack of planning. So that did get some people, but it’s still insane not to do it. It’s still free money. I mean, do it. Let, let me, and this is, this is kind of a wonky question. I don’t, I don’t wanna go want too deep, deep on this. There was, there, as you very well know, there’s many, there were many iterations to the P P P forgiveness forms versus one versus two easy versus not easy. And what those dollar thresholds were, which ones you applied for your, for your forgiveness, and you had to declare there was the 24 week window.

But there, you also had to declare what portion of P P P you used for payroll versus rent and other qualifying expenses. And it got kind of nuanced around qualifying expenses. A lot of small employers said, oh, I’ll just put down my payroll number. I’ll declare that as what I spent it on in. I think they left a little bit of money on the table when it comes to ERTC. Is there a way to go back or, because they declared all that expense, went to payroll on their forgiveness form. It is what it is at this point.

JENSON:

So, good question on that. I will tell you this. Whatever payroll amount you listed on your P P P loan forgiveness application, first of all, you have declared it for P P P, but I’m saying that very carefully because first is, well, only the payroll up to your P P P loan forgiveness, right? Amount would be the maximum that could be in any way, shape, or form deemed for P P P. If you listed rent, utilities and interest. And let’s just go back to that a hundred thousand dollars example, right? Let’s just say that for grins, somebody put down 20,000 in rent, utilities and interest, and they put 180,000 down as payroll like we just talked about. So they showed 200,000 of qualified expenses including payroll on that P P P loan forgiveness application. Well, what the SBA allows IRS agrees with is that of the a hundred thousand, they got that loan, they got that forgiveness, then they would chop off 20,000 because they declared the rent, utilities, and interest.

Therefore, then only 80,000 of their 180,000 that they put down would be then needed for P P P loan forgiveness, and therefore they would have a hundred thousand dollars available. Now, probably more what you’re asking is, well, what about those employers though that didn’t list rent? Right. Utilities and interests. So, right. What’s interesting here is that if you’re filing a form 35 0 8 s, there’s not an opportunity actually to list your rent, utilities and interest. You only list your payroll. Okay? So if you filled out a form 35 0 8 s, which is quite simply your P P P was 150,000 or less, then what you’ve declared is an amount for payroll. But they, in essence, just wanted to know what the payroll is amount for the 24 weeks. They didn’t give you an opportunity to list any of those other expenses. And so if you have proper rent, utilities, and interest, then you can go back and go, well, here was the amount of those other expenses during the 24 weeks.

Now, not more than 40% of that P P P loan forgiveness amount can be allocated to that. So let’s go back to that same example. Someone fills out that form 35 0 8 s, they got a P P P loan for a hundred grand. They got forgiveness of a hundred grand. So they’re filling out that form. They listed 180,000, well check this out. Technically, in that only 60,000 of their figure needed to be, in essence used for payroll to get P P P loan forgiveness. So if in reality, going back they had 20,000 in rent, utilities, and interest, then everything I just told you would be the same numbers where they had 180,000, they had 20,000 of the rent, utilities and interest, then it list, it, it still counts. Now, big exception to this, if you’re filling out the 35 0 8 ez, which is over 150,000, up to 2 million, then you did have to declare rent, utilities, and interest.

And if you’re above the 2 million, you did form 35 0 8 and you had to declare rent, utilities, and interest. So if you filled out those forms and did not declare rent, utilities, or interest, then in essence, this would be probably my opinion, you wouldn’t be able to go back and now declare rent, utilities and interest towards P P P. Yeah, because you had the opportunity. You didn’t list it. You can’t go back and amend it. But it still wouldn’t change the fact that you still, in essence, may have put down way more dollar amount in payroll than you actually needed for P P P loan forgiveness. Right?

VANNOY:

All right. So we went down a pretty wonky rabbit hole there. I i that for those who, yeah, I

JENSON:

Apologize

VANNOY:

For those. No, no, I, I, I took this there. For those who know what we’re talking about, that’s a really important clarification. Going back to the title of today’s show, right? It’s not too late. I think we talked about that, right? The law, subsequent laws first one, first update was the Consolidated Appropriations Act, December 27th, 2020. That said you could do it retroactively. It also said it carried forward for through the first half of the year. Then ARPA came along, then Infrastructure Act there, there were, there were, there were legal updates here. But the punchline is, it’s not too late because it’s, it, the mechanism for claiming the credit is a 9 41 x. It’s an amended tax return, of which you have a three year window, which was then extended, I think from the infrastructure bill. It was either arpa, actually it was arpa, which added two more years on. So you got a five year statute of limitations window to retroactively apply for these credits. Do I have the timeline right?

JENSON:

So what you’re correct on is that there is a five-year period for the IRS to come and review this. What I understand is, is that you have that five-year window only for third and fourth quarter of 2021. Yep. yep. So my understanding is, is that when looking at 9 41 x instructions, it’s three years from the original due date of Form 9 41, which means that the first due date, Mike here for anybody, all the way back to the earliest possible time, which would’ve been in the early part of 2020, has until July 31st, 2023 to go back and claim that. And that’s just the first deadline. You know, the big thing, I’m just gonna really drive home here cuz I know you said, Hey, we went down a rabbit hole and, and, and this is true. But see, this is why so many people are giving up on it, Mike, is that, well, this sounds like too much, or, well, gosh, I just now, now my head’s swimming.

P p P loan forgiveness. You just set a form. You said, Hey, this is why you need to bring in an expert. I know you are helping your clients with this. You will help them comb through. What I appreciate about Asure is that you’re gonna ensure that you are doing things correct properly. And, and with that, it does take a little bit of time and effort behind the scenes. But you know, I say this in my videos, Mike, let’s just say for grins, you take any small business owner, right? And let’s just say that in any given day, let’s say that business owner nets, I don’t know, $2,000 to their pocket to take home, that’s a pretty big amount to even say, if we think about, that’d be 10,000 a week, that’d be 40,000 in a month that a small business owner’s putting in their pocket.

So let’s just say that you did spend eight hours of your own time as a small business owner looking into this. And you say, well, I don’t know if I have time for that because I gotta make money for my business. Call customers, vendors, take care of all the other things. Yeah, I gotta make my $2,000 to put on my pocket right now. That same eight hours could yield you a hundred grand, 300 grand, a million dollars depending on the size of your business. And so really what it comes down to is don’t let yourself get bogged down. Look at as, okay, there are a lot of facts and circumstances, but see, rightfully so, not even being aggressive, there’s a lot of opportunity that once you really kind of go through properly, for lack of a better word, this minefield, it is so easy that people actually get to the finish line and say, there really wasn’t that many mines out there. And my gosh, I’m qualifying. Yeah, I mean, even if you got 10 grand back, 20 grand, 30 grand. I mean, it has to be worth the effort, the time, and the push to in essence go after this.

VANNOY:

And the reality is, most employers more than say 10, 20 employees, we’re talking big dollars. We, we really are. So here’s, here’s what I’d like to spend maybe the majority of the rest of our conversation. So I’ve coached everybody watching today listening. Google’s your friend, JJs got a ton of, he’s I think clearly the number one resource on YouTube around ERTC go to sure software.com/ertc. You can see how these things are calculated. I think there’s good understanding. I don’t, I don’t wanna spend a ton of time on the first bucket. The declining in gross receipts. If you’re down more than 50% for 2020 versus 19, if the 2021 and done by 20%, that’s, that’s more kind. Where I think the confusion is, is this is not an, and it’s not a decline in receipts and impacted it’s or capital o r or so if you, if your business didn’t decline, but you’re impacted in this, oh, I wanna get into some legalistic terms here.

If you’re legally impacted you likely qualify. And, and I’m, and I’m reading right from the IRS website here. So according to the IRS business experience, quote, partial suspension of the operation of their trade or business during this period because of a government of governmental orders, limiting commerce travel or group meetings due to covid 19, that is rather loosey-goosey language for the I r s. But this, by, by the nature of this thing of of impacted, it’s really hard to define. It’s like when you’re a parent, you can tell your kids the principles they should live by. You can’t tell ’em everything they, they shouldn’t do cuz the list is too long. That’s kind of the conundrum the IRS is in here. But I if you could help unpack, because if people understand what, what the quote unquote nominal impact of partial shutdowns really means and how the nominal impact of a part of their business cascades to the rest of their business. This, this can be life-changing legal stimulus that people are, are, are, are ha have available. Can, can you just start unpacking that? And then, then I wanna talk about what some specific examples might look like.

JENSON:

You bet. I mean really what it comes down to is did you have any kind of governmental order, whether that’s state, city, county a true governmental order. So not a suggestion but an actual order. Cuz that’s really in essence what the i R s is most concerned about is did you have this order or not? And quite frankly, that’s black and white. So unfortunately due to the conservative nature for CPAs and EAs and tax pros, and I don’t mean with our politics, I just mean fiscally. And it’s like, well, you know, if the line’s up there, we don’t wanna get anywhere near that. It’s just kind of the temperature that you’re getting with your tax advisor. And this is the thing, it’s black and white. There is really no gray in the fact of were you under a governmental order or not. And see that’s not what your CPA EA and your tax pro is keeping up with.

It’s not even really their job. It should be you as the business owner. That’s right. Uncover that. You can’t be the only one wondering in your exact area. So get with your other business owners on that. Because if you’re under that order, then what it comes down to is next, were you impacted yes or no? Right? So if the IRS just were to say to you, and in essence you’re now concerned that it’s the IRS and there’s a big light on your face and you’re under oath and they have a lie detector under, you know, under the microscope here. And can you say yes or no to that question? Were you impacted? Yes or no? And I don’t mean with a smirk and will tell me what impacted it means I’m talking about yes, did you feel impacted? Yes or no? So were you under a governmental order, did you feel impacted?

Yes. And the reason I’m just saying that is that then it really is, okay, well then how were you impacted? And I would just say this, I know it’s technical and I know we want to get into some examples, but if you don’t mind the most, I think eye-opening example is in IRS notice 2021 dash 20 and I get this, that sounds like, okay, we’re getting too detailed, but it’s question number 11 cuz it’s just a series of FAQs. Yeah. So with that, if you go to number 11, here is the example that the IRS gives in essence is you have a essential business, you have a hospital, and then that hospital also is also associated with a pharmacy. Well, the pharmacy is non-essential, the hospital is essential. But if the gross receipts overall of that pharmacy are more than 10% of the overall gross receipts, and that pharmacy then was under a governmental order and it was shut down, the i r s goes out of their way in a very long explanation to say this, then that entire business qualifies.

So you would think, whoa, whoa, whoa, a, a hospital can’t qualify. Well you’re right, but a hospital that also has associated with it, non-essential businesses that were under a governmental order and shut down. And that was in essence substantial enough. But the IRS defined for us, well what’s a substantial, in essence effect to an essential business? 10%, not 10% of revenue being down, but if 10% of your revenue was affected by a governmental shutdown, then the entire business qualifies. It doesn’t matter if you have essential employees or not, they’re not broken out. So check out that one for anybody, mostly your tax pros that might be listening in to this check out that it’ll be eye-opening to you of really how much the IRS goes out of the way to show how even in these circumstances, essential businesses still qualify.

VANNOY:

Yeah. And and, and I’m going back to and reading right from the irs. So it’s governmental orders, limiting commerce, travel or group meetings, right? Limiting commerce if I mean hopefully it’s obvious if you’re a restaurant, I can’t imagine how you don’t qualify, right? I mean if for no other reason, even if you didn’t have to shut down even if you didn’t have to restrict hours just the social distancing requirements for how far apart you could put tables limits your capacity of your restaurant and maybe, maybe the local community poured out to you in, in and really stepped up for, for takeout orders and you didn’t have the decline in gross receipts. But if you limited the capacity of your, your business and the number of customers you could normally serve, you qualify, right?

JENSON:

Absolutely. And there’s really no gray in that because like I said, the irs, especially in that i r s notice goes out of their way to give you examples just like that. And so if somebody were to say, well I need a black and white in essence number, and I’m not talking about, just to your point, I’m not talking about reduction in gross receipts, but if the I s says, if your business had a 10% effect or 10% of your business had an effect, then in essence the whole business had an effect. And so exactly with what you’re talking about with restaurants or salons or those in the nail industry or those in the service industry, that they were limited in their capacity of how many they could let in their store. And I don’t mean national corporate policy, I’m talking about under governmental order.

If there was a limit to the number of people that could be in your store or in your restaurant. If there was in my city it was, well you can still be open but you can’t have any customers come in, right? So you can figure out how to do business that way, but you can’t have any customers come inside. Well then in those circumstances, commerce was limited. And see, this is where in essence people think, well that’s kind of gray and not I go back to, but was your business affected yes or no? But again, the key here is I do appreciate what you’re getting at is that unfortunately there are those that are cold calling businesses and what they’re jumping right to is, well, was your business affected? You know, were you unable to get things from your vendors because that is a qualifier.

Meaning if your business was not able to continue to in essence perform like it used to because your vendors were shut down under governmental order or partially. And so that then limited you being able to do business. So like a mechanic shop that couldn’t get motors to then continue that’s a qualifier. But see many of the shuckster out there, and this is what I appreciate about Asher wanting to put the good word out there and how this works, is they’re not at all paying attention to did you have a governmental order? Cuz if you had a governmental order and it was a pandemic, I want everybody to remember this. We don’t need to be macho about this. We don’t need to now somehow forget we were in a pandemic where the nation was shut down and many states were shut down way longer than others.

And many industries such as that hospitality industry were shut down way longer. You were affected. It’s okay to admit it. You were affected, it wasn’t your fault. So if you have a governmental order, I I I almost say this, how were you not affected? Cuz again, it’s not about your gross receipts being down. It’s right. Did it have an effect? And you know, in your heart of hearts, were you affected or not? Right? And so if small business owners in essence can get over the fact that they have to find all these reasons, and first just figure out if you’re under a governmental order. Cuz if you’re under a governmental order, I say with all due respect to any fellow tax broker, how is your business owner client actually not affected? I don’t get it. Quite frankly, if you’re under a governmental order, how are you not affected? Because in that same IRS notice I told you the IRS shows time and time again how essential businesses still qualifying.

VANNOY:

Yeah. And and I I think about, you know, tr tr trying to paint, paint some picture of, of clarification. I, if you’re a software company and coincidentally you all your employees went to an office and but they, they do so with the laptop that they carry in their briefcase government order happens the next morning, they work from home, they don’t skip a beat. They assume we kind of call, talk to their customers government order not impacted. They, they, they wouldn’t qualify. But if you’re, if you’re an architectural firm and it’s just a normal part of your practice is to go to a job site or, or meet with a customer face-to-face to roll out a blueprint and you can’t do that. Or if you do it in a restricted way because of the order, then impacted, right. It, it really is. I i i I like the way you’re describing it that I I I I fear there’s this, this thinking of nuance here that really isn’t nuanced, right? Was there an order? So I I I live in St. Louis County. It’s the, it’s the county commissioner of health and put together these businesses are allowed to be open or not. These are the hours they’re allowed to be open. These are the social distancing capacity requirements, super black and white to the date when they go into effect than when they were lifted, right? So it, it really is much more black and white than you might think.

JENSON:

I agree. And I’m gonna go back to the software example because really I would say maybe in the beginning when I was still getting my hands around this, I might initially think, yeah, that software company, you know, they didn’t miss a beat. So they weren’t impacted. But what you have to remember here, fellow business owners here, is that, how was that software company though not impacted? I mean they had to, and this isn’t me coming up with reasons, there’s no smirking involved here. This isn’t trying to convince anybody. But the only reason they didn’t miss a beat is that they had to do a big pivot. And because of technology and being able to have a business that they could still in essence work from other locations or at home and then having laptops, this wouldn’t even require that they bought new laptops. It wouldn’t even matter that, well, once a week the employee was already working at home, that business was impacted.

I mean, if we weren’t talking about the IRS and we were just saying, Hey, was that business impacted at all? Well, we would all say yes. I mean that business was impacted if they no longer are able to gather at the office, right? That affects the meetings just cuz we can now do zoom. So that’s where it’s very easy, unfortunately for my profession as CPAs and EAs and tax professionals to kind of almost take a sarcastic approach towards this. And I, and I don’t mean that to be callous, but it does make me a little irritated that we take this like, oh, well you were fine. You know, okay, well this isn’t back in the fifties where you scraped up your knees on the bicycle and even though you’re clearly in you know, bleeding and you’re hurt and you got scraped up knees as you’re walking into the house and you’re getting cleaned up, what did they say back in the fifties?

You know, oh, you’re fine. Just suck it up. You know, we’ve gonna put a little dirt, little dirt on it and you get back out there. That’s not what this is, y’all, I mean, this is very much, how is that software company not impacted the, the restaurant that pivot? And they said, oh, we’ll do takeout, or we’ll now sit outside. I mean, how is it not impacted? So I’d look at it as this, if it wasn’t for the pandemic, would you have done what you did software company, right? In that example, no. If there was no, any, if there was not a pandemic, we wouldn’t have all been working at home. Well then how are you not affected? Meaning you were, so you take a software company and they said, Hey we plan April 1st, we’re closing all our offices. We haven’t renewed the leases and we’re now gonna have everybody work from home.

And they decided that back in 2019 and then all of a sudden the pandemic happened. Okay? Maybe in that example it’s like, well, you were already planning on doing this so you weren’t impacted. But no was doing that. So at the end of the day, I just say this, the first thing to make sure, especially if someone’s cold calling you, okay? And I, and I don’t mean from a advisor that you know, like as sure I’m saying you don’t know this person from Adam and they’re calling you, the first thing you gotta resolve is, was I under a governmental order? The second is, is to yourself, was there any impact to how you were going about your business that’s black or white to me, Mike? I mean, yes or no? Oh, well, they said I was an essential business. Okay, you’re an essential business. Was there still an impact?

Well, I, and there you go. Either yes or no. So let me give you an example of a business that in essence wouldn’t be impacted, would be an urgent care center that is medical. They’re deemed essential. They never shut down. Another employees went to go work anywhere else. They didn’t go outside to then do testing with people, meaning they didn’t change anything to how they were doing. It wouldn’t even really matter that they’re essential. It’s just that, well, the, it had no impact. They just kept going. So even if they were not as busy, the fact is they just kept going. Like they always had, it’s not an impact. So even under a governmental order, well of course they don’t qualify, but if there was an impact, then they qualify. So at the end of the day, I think what really the IRS would be looking at is, was there a governmental order upon inquiring. Second is, well, just how were you impacted a paragraph describing that just as we talked about is, is really kind of what we’re all needing to kind of get our hands around is it’s a yes or no. I think it’s black and white really in most circumstances.

VANNOY:

And so, so we talk about limiting commerce, travel or group meetings. If a normal part of doing business is, say you bring your managers together for a quarterly business review and you can’t do that, it might ha that might not impact your revenues today. But if that’s part of your normal way of doing business, how could that not be an impact? Right? If you, if you normally see customers face-to-face, because that’s a really important relationship building component of serving your client and you and you and you have to fundamentally change the way you do it via phone, via Zoom. It’s different. It’s an impact directly related because the fact that maybe if you’re in California, it was illegal to make those sales calls for a while, right?

JENSON:

Right. Yeah. And, and I would just look at it this way. If, if somebody’s looking at that and they’re like, well, it was once a quarter, how did that really have an impact? Look to the 10% impact to your business. Again, not talking about gross receipts in question 11 in that IRS notice it’s talking about a 10% in impact to the business. So if it impacted 10% of your meetings than you had an impact. So you take into account, let’s just use an example cuz now we’re getting in the area where most people are now, quite frankly, even though they’re listening to us right now, they’re actually going the opposite way and trying to figure out all the ways. Well, no, they wouldn’t qualify in those circumstances. And that’s after two years of advising small business owners. That’s the direction everybody’s probably going in their mind right now.

Yeah. What I would go to then is if somebody is really feeling like you and I are kind of smirking here and we’re trying to come up with these obscure ways to say, oh, well if, if I just minced one meeting once a quarter, then I was impacted. Okay. You’re right though. Because if that was impacted right, then what was the other impact? Because of the lack of that meeting? Did it in essence slow or impact 10% of your other meeting? So if you came together quarterly and then out of that quarterly meeting you had your marching orders going into the next quarter in the sales and how things were gonna be, and if you saw a slowdown of the number of appointments that you had the number of interactions that you could have, even if your revenue was up, then I would feel you how to impact.

I mean, 10%, the IRS gave it to us in black and white. Was there a 10% impact? So in that example, I would say, well, there’s the start, right? There was that one meeting, we couldn’t come together. Did it have an effect on, in essence, more than, you know, 10% of my meetings? So I usually have 20 meetings in a week. Well, what’s 10% of that? Did it have that effect? The answer’s gonna be yes, in my opinion. Yeah. so again, I would just look at it as were you able to continue doing business like you were before? And if the answer’s no, then I don’t know how you’re not impacted. Again, assuming you’re under the governmental order.

VANNOY:

JJ, maybe one last question I have for you on this topic, and we’ll kind of go to wrap on this. What’s the, what’s your position, legal position on impact of masks? So social distancing, no-brainer, curfews, no-brainer restriction in hours, no brainer. A lot of these government mandates, whether it was, I mean this isn’t federal government stuff. This is governors, this is mayors, this is county executives kind of stuff, right? But if there are mask mandates, does that qualify as, okay, I’m impacted because I can still conduct business. What if I’m the employer now I have to, I have to pay for protect protective gear, p p P equipment, right? P P e, excuse me whether it’s cleaning supplies or masks for my employees. Talk, talk us through that. With that. I think that one’s kind of a lightning rod topic culturally around masks. Does, does a mask mandate qualify?

JENSON:

Well, it’s a great question and really it would depend on that specific area and that impact. And let me, let me clarify related to this. So when we look at the CARES Act and we look at what the in essence definition is of a governmental order, it says that it’s a partial or full shutdown affecting commerce, travel or meetings, right? So if only, now I, I would probably just say this would probably be my opinion, but if only there was a mask mandate, meaning you could be open no problem, there was no social distancing limitations. You could have as many people as you wanted into your business. But all there was was a mask mandate. Well, it doesn’t meet that first criteria in the CARES Act, which is a partial or full shutdown. So it’s not just, there was a governmental order in, in my opinion here, that affected your business.

It’s a governmental order that required a partial or full shutdown. So if in essence there’s only a mask mandate, that’s it. I don’t see that that qualifies. But let me put it another way though. Let’s say that there is a mandate of partial or foreclosure in this way, cuz this is how it was in my city. If you don’t mandate masks in your business, you can’t be open. Okay? So the way that they got around it in some areas is they’re saying, Hey listen, we’re saying you can be opened or closed. Okay? Yeah. But you can only be open if you require masks in that business. Okay, well that is a partial or full shutdown due to a mask mandate. So hopefully I made it real clear mask mandate only you can be open, but we have a mask mandate. I don’t think that qualifies as a partial or full shutdown, but a contingency on the mask.

You can’t be open unless you mandate mask. Well then that’s a partial or full shutdown because of this criteria of the mask. Now I know there’s gonna be some that say, well, people came to the front door and they wouldn’t come in because they wouldn’t wear the mask for whatever reason. And so that had an effect on my business. Well, if that was your policy, if it was corporate policy, then that is a set of circumstances that aren’t gonna qualify cuz it wasn’t a governmental order. So yeah, what it comes down to is, in essence, those are some finites, but there were a lot of places, even in the most conservative areas, and I am talking politics when I say that even the most conservative areas of the country, there were mask mandates. But if that’s all it was, I don’t see that that qualifies you. But if it was a condition of being open, well then that would be in essence something that’s a qualifier. And for anybody that’s a tax pro that may wanna argue that I’d say well compare it to a restaurant that can be open, but only at 50% capacity or only at 80% capacity. Right? Well, that was a qualifier to be open just the same as the mask mandate being a qualifier to be open. So great question on that one, Mike.

VANNOY:

Yeah. All right. So, so we’ll take a minute and just kind of talk. How do you, you know, how do you have to pay it back? The answer is no spoiler alert. But how, how do you get the money how long to get before you get your money? Before, before we talk about that, to me, the, the punchline here is people can easily arrive. Just Google’s your friend or hop on our website, watch one of your videos. The the gross receipts test is, is, is black and white. That plays into the hands of, of, of CPAs and tax advisors, right? The, the more nuanced what, what what I think is seen as nuanced really isn’t it, is black and white. The IRS says, and I’ll say it again, governmental orders, limiting commerce traveler group meetings. So if there’s a governmental order, this isn’t say, Hey, my, my neighborhood, a bunch of people think this way and therefore I can’t do such and such.

That’s opinion, that’s politics. That’s, that’s whatever. But if your county official, and it’ll be on the websites there, there, there are time date stamps to these things. If there’s a government order around social distancing, curfews, hours, transportation, any of these things in, if your business is impacted, right? And that portion of your business is more than 10% of the greater business or that government order impacts your supplier, and that therefore that supplier and their ability to serve you impacted you. This is pretty black and white stuff. And in that context, 3.3 million small businesses, I think there are millions, truly millions of businesses plural, leaving legal stimulus money on the table that this is, this isn’t black and white and no one should feel guilty taking it if you do, you know, vote different people in to, to, to, to pull, to claw these things back. But as a business owner, I would say it’s your obligation to maximize the, the stimulus that is, that you’re legally entitled to.

JENSON:

Absolutely. And, and let me just, for a business owner or even a fellow tax pro out there, if somebody buys a computer we don’t think twice, we’re gonna deduct that. If it’s under $2,500 under the repair expense regs, we can immediately expense it. If it’s a super computer and it’s over $2,500, what we can do section 1 78, 1 79. Or we can do regular depreciation and no one stops for one second to say, whoa, hang, hang on, hang on a second. Is that computer though, are we really using it for business? What if it’s at home? Is is it truly for business if it’s at home? But we also take it to the office. What if I, what if I look up a personal article on Sunday morning? Or my point is, fellow tax pros, you don’t ever have those discussions. So I would say with some authority, then stop trying to have those same kind of discussions about a tax credit.

Because in essence, more what we get into as tax pros is, okay, well is it an asset that you bought? Right? Right. Are you using it for business? Yes or no? It’s that straightforward in my opinion with this ERTC, are you a business? Yes. Are you an employer? Yes. Do you pay W2 wages? Yes. Did you have a governmental order? Yes. We ask the client, did you have an impact to your business? Yes. Let’s go get the credit right now, you may wanna go a step further, get a copy of the governmental order in the file. You may wanna ask a few questions. Well, hey, you know, let’s just document, you know, how are you affected? Well, we had to work at home all the time. You’re affected, let’s go get the credit. The credit for that is the exact days. Okay?

The credit for gross receipts being down is the entire quarter. It’s 70% of the payroll. What we need to remember is if somebody wants to know, well, what would be my potential? Let’s say if gross receipts were down, or I was closed for three months or so, if you went to your form 9 41 and you looked at the line item that says total wages and multiplied it by 70% in 2021, that is what you’re looking at for your credit, in essence of a ballpark. If somebody’s like, well Mike, you know what? Gimme a ballpark. Like what are we talking about here? Is this something worth me messing with? Yeah. What were the wages on 9 41 times 70%? You’re right, once we get in the numbers, there may be limitations based on the dollar amount paid to employees. But I’m just saying that’s a starting figure, right?

And that’s substantial amount of money. So right now we know that there was a new tax act that came out that gave people a tax credit if they’re buying hybrid and electric vehicles. No one’s sitting around trying to ponder whether or not that vehicle is something that they should get a tax credit for. Cuz you don’t even have to own a business. So I don’t wanna get down that. All I’m saying is, is that it is quite interesting, Mike, to your point Yeah. That for whatever reason this governmental order and then how it impacted you and it has made it feel gray and that, oh, there’s nuances or people wanna be sarcastic about it, but no one would ever approach depreciating a computer or buying a vehicle and getting the tax credit related to that with these same discussions. So if we approach it the same, we’re gonna conclude the same, but you’re gonna be able to get that e r tc

VANNOY:

I I, I love, I love that example, JJ cuz I mean my cpa, she’s a wonderful human being. She doesn’t ask to see my browser history or my wife’s browser history on the computer that is primarily a work computer to prove to her that we are really using this for work, not personal. Right. She doesn’t insist on GPS trackers to prove that the mileage we’re claiming real. I mean, we’re, we’re telling the truth. We’re not doing anything wrong, illegal, but we’re attesting to it. Right? Right. You said something I think really important in one of the videos I watched a long time ago. I think we need to change the paradigm in, in, in, if this needs come from you, not me, cuz you’re the cpa, not me. We need to stop looking for all of the ways that you do qualify.

And it it almost like we’re trying to prove it, prove it, prove it, prove it, prove it, prove it. Versus we just look for disqualifiers. Right? Gross, gross receipts test. It’s black and white, yes or no governmental order, yes or no impacted, yes or no. Beyond that, the business owner is the one who has to attest that the, that they really were impacted. They really did these things just like they’re really using the computer the way they said, just like they’re really driving the miles and the places and locations for business reasons that they said, am I overstating that?

JENSON:

Not at all. And so, you know, I’ve been practicing for 30, 30 years. I’ve had my own c p a practice for 25. My clients have been selected for audit. I would probably say every time randomly. And I’m not gonna knock on wood because I don’t know how it’s gonna come across, but hear me knocking on wood somewhere in your head. I’ve never had an i r s adjustment on a return that I’ve prepared in my entire career, ever. Period. Never have had an adjustment to a return that I’ve prepared. So that should first tell you that I in essence want to do things correctly. The second thing is, is that I feel the reasoning for that is that what we’re trying to find is what is the way that we qualify? The IRS may come and say, oh, you don’t qualify cuz of this.

Your friend may say you don’t qualify cuz of that. Maybe some advisor says, oh, you don’t qualify for that. But our job is in essence, yeah, look at all the disqualifiers. But once you find the route that you do qualify, then you qualify. I mean, it’s not, well, I’m playing this sport and you know, if I, if I go left and I dropped the ball, then this happens. Okay, well then don’t go left and don’t drop the ball. Well, I didn’t, I I went straightforward. But then somebody else says, well, but if you go right and you pass the ball that that doesn’t work. It’s like, yeah, but I didn’t do that. I went straight. So you can’t listen to everybody that’s saying if you did this, and if you did that you don’t qualify. You have to look at us. Well, what did happen?

Well, I went straight. I wasn’t tackled, I wasn’t touched, I didn’t do anything other than I crossed a line. And then the ref does what? Well, yeah, you could have done this and you could have done that. Here’s the reality. You got a touchdown. If I’m using that as an example. So the I r s is a ref, okay? They’re not the big bad wolf. Their job is to come and go. Yes. Did you get over the line or no? And so from that perspective, just like with anything else, what was your intent? Is your intent to defraud the government? Is your intent to sit back now and tell all your friends how you pulled a fast one on everybody, including the government and how you’re able to get this benefit? Or were you sitting back with your friends going, man, I mean, thank goodness me, fellow business owner, I was able to find this program and I was able to qualify for it because we had a governmental order and we did have an impact.

We had to start changing how we were doing business. And because of that, we got it. And here’s what I want to probably make the biggest point. This was an employee retention tax credit, which means that this is a reward to the employers that somehow found a way to keep payroll going. That’s right. That’s that. It’s, it’s a reward to the employers that said, okay, I guess we’ll now work from home. It’s a reward to that business owner that said, okay, we’ll now we’ll mark it this way. We’ll do meetings this way. We’ll get a Zoom account. This is in essence a credit to reward. In essence that payroll continued outside of the dollar amount that you got for P P P. Yeah. And the reasoning for that is that the impact of this pandemic was so long, especially in certain areas of the country and businesses.

So you fellow business owner, you did a phenomenal job where you felt like you didn’t or not, you did what most businesses were struggling to do and then couldn’t by keeping your business open, keeping people on payroll, they didn’t go on unemployment. You found other ways to bring in money to keep people on payroll. So, amen. Many times, Mike, you know this for my videos, I talk about us as business owners and maybe even tax pros. We all believe we have that proverbial s under our shirt, right? We’re a superhero. We can’t ever admit as a business owner that we were worried or scared or that we had to pivot to keep our business going. Right? We never wanna admit those things. But the reality is, is that if for whatever reason you had to pull that open a little bit to expose the s under your shirt, that you were in essence doing things to keep things going under a governmental order.

How do you not qualify your gross receipts? Were down. IRS goes, thank you for keeping your business open and keeping people on payroll. That’s that’s right. And here is the reward. So at the end of the day, there is a truck full of rewards out there in the i r s. Their job is not to come in and start handing out the rewards. Yeah. The only way is for you to go to the I r s and say, Hey, here’s a form 9 41 X for this quarter. I need a check. Cuz guess what Mike? They don’t ask on that form any of these questions. And I’m not at all saying, so now we don’t have to meet the qualifications on 9 41 x. They say, what are the wages? What is the credit? That’s it. That’s

VANNOY:

Right. I, I do my very best to keep politics outta this show and, and just to try to share the best information we can to entrepreneurs and employers and, and small and growing businesses. But, but the reality is here, I I I love, I love your talk track on this cuz whether you lean really far left it, this is great for you. This is, this is a a a a a a top-down decision to, to, to put money back in the hand of employers if you lean far right good news, this is lower taxes, smaller government, lower taxes. This, we don’t want anybody to commit tax fraud. This is your money, JJ, this is my money. This is our, this might be some of our kids and grandkids money that we’re talking about here. But you should, as a business owner, as a, as a, as a growing business, maximize the stimulus that you’re legally entitled to.

And hopefully today we, we put some more clarity around probably a lot more businesses qualify in a black and white kind of way than they thought they did. May maybe last thing and we’ll, and we’ll wrap. So it’s a credit, you don’t have to pay it back like the, like p p P loans. So this is simply, you know, when it was going on, you could apply for the credit in real time and simply not pay your lower, your tax burden that you’re paying in decreasing your, your cash requirements at the time. Since this is now all in the past, you’re literally talking about getting a check in your hand. How long is it currently taking people to get checks in their hands?

JENSON:

Well, under current conditions and, and in case somebody’s listening to this later, you know, we’re going into kind of fourth quarter of 2022 here. Yeah. and really what we’re looking at right now is about six to nine months. But there are areas of the country that that’s shorter. So believe it or not, when you file this, it is this 9 41 x you know, this. But for those listening, you know, it goes to different processing centers. Some are more caught up than the other. The IRS I think is a good thing, is getting more money to hire more agents, which they’re gonna wanna be getting caught up on this. So really the way that it normally would work on normal conditions is that you would probably have this money back within six to eight weeks. Six to nine months sounds like a lot, but at the end of the day it’s getting shorter and shorter.

So depending on when somebody’s listening to this, it really could be shorter. And I think that it’s, that’s right around the corner, Mike. And here’s the other reason. There really was a flood of these 9 41 X’s going in and so know this small business owner because of Asure you have found out about something that’s not too late to take advantage of, number one. Number two, those that probably know about it already have done it. You’re now in essence have found the advantage by being associated with Asure. That puts you in essence in the front running amongst other business owners to be aware of things are available to you. The good news is you have plenty of time to go and get this money, which is a long way of saying is that there’s less and less of these 9 41 X’s going in, which means that it will get faster and faster on the processing. Yeah. So my prediction is when we hit first quarter of next year, I think they’re gonna be caught up. Which means that even though I’m saying six to nine months, here’s my reality, I think we’re talking about maybe two to three months, which is reasonable when we’re talking about 10, 5,000 thousand, 600,000,

VANNOY:

I can say in our experience, and I don’t think we have any magic with the IRS necessarily, but, but we do, you know, we’re a bulk filer for on behalf of employers, right? So, so we probably have a little bit of line of sight, maybe not influence, but line of sight that others don’t. Early days, easily nine plus months. I’d say the first half of this year starting to see some people under six months. Would there seem to be maybe a lack of clarity? Yeah. I’m just assuming there’s some good audit processes at, at the i r s where smaller dollar amounts seem to be flowing faster, larger dollar amounts slower.

JENSON:

Oh yeah, sure.

VANNOY:

Yeah. but the general trend is it’s getting better. The reality is IRS was impacted too, right? They sent people home backlogs built up. They’re in process of hiring people growing. They’re for sure improving processes. They have systems that don’t always talk to each other, but I I I, we see a re we see a path to return to normal as well.

JENSON:

Yeah, I agree. And then, and yeah, obviously you guys are the experts on that and many may not know this, but there actually was about a nine month delay for the i r s to have the retroactive information. Cuz when you file the 9 41 x, you obviously know this, but for people listening in, there’s a couple of key numbers that you put on the 9 41 X that come from the originally filed form 9 41. Yeah. And the IRS just wants to verify that what you’re listing there is matching. And so they started out nine months behind Mike. And so my point is, is you’re right, it’s getting less and less and less. And I think probably you and I are saying the same thing that by early next year, I think it’ll get down to normal time

VANNOY:

Period here. Yeah. That you had people filing their 9 41 x the amended return after they filed their 9 41, but before the IRS had ever even laid eyeballs on the 9 41. Right. So there’s a there’s a process.

JENSON:

Right. Exactly. Yep. Yeah,

VANNOY:

JJ, this has been an awesome conversation. I, I I I, I, I couldn’t encourage employers, especially small businesses enough whether you think you’re a superhero or not, the fact that you employed people through a pandemic, we sure as heck hope this is a once in a lifetime event for, for all of us. But take advantage of the stimulus that’s legally available to you. Hopefully JJ made a lot clear for folks today. And hopefully this is a message we can, we can share with our CPA friends and our, and our tax advising, our ea ea friends in the payroll business that clearly JJ, you speak from a position of authority that I think we can’t in, in, in, we seek to partner and come alongside the tax pros not be in competition with on this topic. Cuz we all want the same thing. We want small businesses to succeed and we want them to thrive. And there may be no single better opportunity than the e r TC to jumpstart that growth coming outta this pandemic. JJ, anything real quick you wanna say about

JENSON:

How absolutely you guys are doing such a wonderful job of helping your clients? Yeah.

VANNOY:

Anything you’d wanna say in closing how you help clients or, or fellow CPAs? I,

JENSON:

Well I appreciate that really it would just be checking out JJ the cpa.com if you don’t mind, cuz I do seminars for tax pros and small businesses owners. And then always for free, you can check out my YouTube channel, JJ, the cpa and I do have a playlist. I think it’s got over 50 videos talking about the ERTC and a lot of these things that we’ve been talking about today. But I would just say in closing that if you’re a client of Asure this would be something that you would want to tell, I think your fellow business owners about that this is unique. I work with all the payroll companies or aware of all the payroll companies, and I don’t know of one of them, Mike, that do this service of providing good information. Whether it’s helping that business owner directly do more business with you or not really, just appreciate that you’re getting the word out. So fellow business owners let other business owners know about this, send them this podcast and know that this is a unique company. This is a unique company that in essence is trying to ensure that their clients are aware of everything that’s out there, even when it’s kind of outside of the realm of what Asure does. Now ERTC, right? Am I correct you guys help your customers get this? Correct.

VANNOY:

So if you’re, if you’re an existing payroll customer, we have all your payroll data. So we have unique insight to know what qualifying wages are, right? So we help determine qualifying wages. We actually calculate the amounts. And because we are a, a, a tax filer on behalf of our clients, we actually filed the 9 41 Xs. And our clients, I hate to say it so simplistic, they received the checks. We have expanded this service for non-payroll clients. Now, we don’t have your payroll history, so we’ll need to work with you to determine qualifying wages, but you give us a detailed spreadsheet of what you paid employees by quarter and we’ll take that. We’ll help you determine what your qualifying wages are, we’ll calculate their returns file fill out and file those tax returns on your behalf. So we’re, our mission is to just help small businesses grow. So appreciate, appreciate the kind words, JJ and I look forward to talking to you again and for everybody else. Until next week.