Revised Form 941-X Released by the IRS

Those of you who have been patiently waiting for the IRS to release a finalized Form 941-X, you are in luck. The IRS has officially released a finalized version of Form 941-X that can be used to file corrections to Form 941 for the 2nd quarter. 

This is what you will need to know to file this form successfully.

Why Change Form 941-X?

Here’s a little background information. As you may know the Form 941-X has been revised to accommodate the many changes to the original Form 941. 

After the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic, the government offered several different tax relief options to employers. These refundable tax credits and deferments led to the overall of the Form 941 used to report to the IRS for the 2nd quarter of 2020. In total, 23 new data fields were added to the form. 

So, what if employers find that they made a mistake in reporting information on any of these new data fields? The current Form 941-X was last revised in April of 2017, making it impossible for employers to correct the new data fields. The IRS released a draft of Form 941-X back in July to accommodate these changes, and the IRS has now released an official version.

Please take notice that this finalized revised draft will be used to report corrections for the second quarter of 2020 from Form 941 and Form 941-SS. Since the IRS has added additional revisions to the Form 941 and Form 941-SS for the third quarter of 2020, another revised Form 941-X can be expected in October. 

Another reason behind changing the Form 941-X is the COBRA premium assistance credits. This credit was available to employers to help pay the premiums of employees who were involuntarily terminated between September 1, 2008, and May 31, 2010.

This has remained available to filers for rare circumstances where this credit was available. Because the chances of any employee needing to report corrections on this credit is extremely low, this option has been removed from the form. 

What Does the Revised Form 941-X Look Like? 

The revised Form 941-X has been expanded dramatically to accommodate the changes due to COVID-19 tax relief. Section 3 of the form is where these changes will be found on the following lines. 

Who Should File Form 941-X?

This form should be filed by any employers that notice an issue on the Form 941 that they submitted for the 2nd quarter back in July. Now that this form has been finalized by the IRS, employers can begin to submit this corrections form. 

Any employer that finds a mistake on their 2nd quarter reporting for that is not related to COVID-19 or the new data fields will still need to file this revised Form 941-X, as it is the appropriate form for this quarter. 

This form should be filed as soon as employers find any errors on the Form 941 to prevent unwanted penalties from the IRS. 

Did you know that TaxBandits supports the Form 941-X? We can help you complete this form with the help of our user-friendly software. Now that the finalized version of Form 941-X has been released, our team is dedicated to updating the TaxBandits software to include all of the changes to this form. 

Get started with TaxBandits today!