We are getting this question a lot from practice owners about the recent Trump Executive Order allowing employees to defer paying their Social Security taxes for the remainder of this year:
I wanted to know if we are obligated to withhold the payroll taxes for the employees. I am not sure if this is mandatory. It was supposed to start September 1 of this year. Please advise what to do.
And our response is:
No, there is no requirement that you help your employees defer this tax. The whole thing is a lot of extra work to defer $1k or so of social security taxes into 2021. If an employee really needs this extra money right now, they should take advantage of this opportunity. Otherwise let’s stay the course.
A copy of our article originally posted on 8/31 is available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/trumps-executive-order-allowing-your-employees-defer-social-schwartz/.