Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses and livelihoods were stopped in their tracks. For many industries, the government had to place restrictions on business operations; opening hours, limits on the number of customers allowed to access the service and the way they had to provide their service. This inevitably led to businesses facing extreme financial hardships.
Myrtha Chang experienced first-hand, the hardships that the business world had to face. The owner of Mathnasium, a math tutoring service, made the choice to keep employing her workers and continued to pay their wages in full despite the lesser hours they were working.
“There simply was no demand for math tutoring anymore,” Chang shared with us, “The combination of remote learning for children, and the mass unemployment for parents, the need for tutoring majorly declined. If there were no math exams to take, parents understandably didn’t see a need for the extra learning.”
While in the present time, reducing her staff would have been a wise choice that no one could look down upon, in the long-term it would have put her at a detriment. Making the choice to let go of her trained and experienced staff would make the recovery of her business even more challenging, as the investment in training new staff would have set her back too far, possibly beyond recovery.
“I did think about reducing my workforce, but when considering the future of Mathnasium, I don’t see how we would be able to come back from that. I fear that would have been the end of the business.”
Thankfully, Ms. Chang and others didn’t have to suffer alone. The IRS created a scheme to aid struggling businesses. For those who decided to continue employing their staff throughout 2020 and 2021. This new scheme called the Employee Retention Credit, allows business owners to claim a credit that repays them for their losses from wages, a respectable 50% for 2020 and 70% per quarter for 2021.
ERC Benefits is a company specifically created to aid businesses in claiming this credit. They have set out to ensure everyone eligible is able to claim exactly what they deserve.
ERC Benefits’ Chief Revenue Officer stated that:
“Many people, when they hear the IRS is involved, roll their eyes and dismiss the idea. ‘While it’s a nice idea, I don’t see how we qualify for it,’ they said. Well, I want everyone to know that this process is far simpler than they might think. This credit was made to help all types of businesses, so to qualify all you need to do is prove you have received a substantial loss in revenue from 2020 to 2021, about 20% loss. For any business owner, this proof should be easy to obtain through bank statements. The only other thing you would need to show is that you have kept the same amount of employees throughout this time and that they have been getting paid a full wage.”
The Employee Retention Credit doesn’t discriminate against new businesses either. If a business was founded in 2020, it can still be eligible. For these, you will need to show that your earnings didn’t meet the expected earnings for that year.
Ms. Chang was encouraged to seek out ERC Benefits assistance, and with their help was able to claim the credit.
“I was absolutely shocked when I saw how much was repaid. I’m not ashamed to admit seeing the funds cleared in my account made me cry. I was extremely relieved and grateful that my business will be okay.”
Despite the lifted restrictions within the country, you are still able to claim ERC right until the end of 2023 if you are still experiencing the backlash of the pandemic within your business. If you would like help in claiming or would like to see if you’re eligible, contact ERC Benefits at 561 680 4677 or visit ercbenefit.com.