Trump Attempts to Delay Employee Payroll Taxes

Over the weekend, President Trump made several announcements relating to additional government assistance in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Likely the most notable for business owners is his call to halt payroll taxes for employees earning less than $4,000 every two weeks (approximately $104,000 per year) from September 1 through December 31. While this may soon provide some much-needed cash flow for employees, it’s not the “free money” the past stimulus check provided and many employees will likely be surprised when it comes time to repay the taxes. Many details such as repayment schedule and whether employees will opt-in or opt-out are still unknown.

Other measures announced Saturday include an extension of student loan payment relief, a possible extension of the current eviction moratorium, and a renewal of unemployment payments. President Trump previously suspended student loan payments and set interest rates to zero but the relief was scheduled to end September 30 and is now available until December 31. And finally, the $400 per week unemployment payments will be funded by pulling approximately $44 billion from FEMA Disaster Relief Funds to fund 75% of the payments and requires states to use money allocated to them through the Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF) to fund the remaining 25% of the payments. Payments would end the sooner of December 6 or depletion of the $44 billion FEMA DRF funds.